The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education during their meeting on Monday night approved the formation of a committee tasked with investigating the possibility of shifting the school district to a four-day school week.
According to literature provided at the meeting, the ad hoc committee will investigate and research the benefits and challenges of implementing a four-day school week, and will present its research and findings at the Board of Education meeting in July, 2024.
“I am very thankful that we finally got the next step in this. This has been sort of a passion project of mine, one of the things I ran on over six years ago and so it’s been much nagging from me and it’s finally here,” said Jason Tauriainen, who will chair the ad hoc committee. “To be able to go to the next step and start bringing forth more evidence and reasons to whether we should move towards this or not. So I look forward to working with this committee.”
Discussions on advancing the idea of a four-day school week have been around in the district for years, but took a big step forward in June of this year when the school board hosted a planning session intended to facilitate a conversation on the viability of such a schedule. Superintendent Clayton Holland made it clear at that time that the purpose of the planning session was to just have a discussion on the topic, not make any decisions. Several ideas were tossed around during the session, ranging from how to even implement a four-day school week, to the way such a schedule might impact the willingness of new teachers to come to the district, to whether or not school day hours would be extended to accommodate for the shorter week.
Like the planning session in June, the decision to green light the committee–which is identified as a temporary committee–does not indicate any decision on the issue. Rather, members of the committee will begin meeting with the intention of seeking answers to a predetermined list of questions regarding the viability of shifting schools to four-day weeks.
Guiding questions for the committee are:
- How will this affect district costs and savings?
- What is the effect on quality of life?
- How does it affect student attendance?
- How does it affect negotiations and what are the Unions’ input on a four-day school week?
- How is the community involved?
- What are potential student outcomes?
- Could KPBSD pilot this in a particular school/area of the district?
- What information can be gathered from other districts in the country that have implemented a four-day
school week?
The temporary committee will be comprised of two members of the Board of Education (Tauriainen and Tim Daugharty), KPBSD Director of Secondary Education Tony Graham, Director of Human Resources Nate Crabtree, KPEA President LaDawn Druce, KPESA President Susanna Litwiniak, and KPAA President Pete Swanson.
Currently in Alaska, the Southeast Island School District has used the four-day school week model since 2013. Also, as of this fall, studies showed that the implementation of four-day school weeks nationwide was up 900% over the last 20 years.
An Associated Press article published in September indicated school districts across the country are making the decision to utilize the shorter school week due to operations cost reductions and improved teacher recruitment.
The formation of the committee was approved unanimously by the board.
