A Four-Day School Week Could Be the Answer
Julissa Duran, Staff Reporter
There are currently twenty-seven school districts in Texas with a four-day school week. This system was adopted in response to the current teacher exodus in hopes of attracting and retaining current and new staffers. With teacher shortages on the rise across the country, more schools should follow suit.
Switching over to a four-day week can help districts with staff scarcity. An increase in applicants were found in the Texas districts that have adopted the schedule. It also served as an incentive to current staff members.
“We had teachers that had multiple offers from our school district and a neighboring school district and they were waiting on our board to vote on whether we were going to do four days or five-day weeks,” David Tarver, assistant superintendent of Mineral Wells ISD, told The Texas Tribune.
The four-day schedule was seen as a benefit over the traditional school calendar, as it played a role in teachers’ decisions on which district to work for.
There will however need to be a few sacrifices, specifically towards the school start and end times, and our holidays. The average NEISD has a school week that averages out to 7.15 hours for elementary school and middle schools, and 7.35 hours for high schools. If NEISD were to move the high schools’ starting time to 8:00, the middle school start time to 7:35, the end time for the early start elementary school to 3:35, and the late start elementary schools to end time to 4:05 we can make up almost 5 out of the 7.5 hours we are missing with the extra day off.
As for the holidays, thanksgiving and summer break may have to be cut short by a few days, and some single-day holidays may need to be taken away to meet the 180-day school requirement.
It can be argued that a four-day week would only be an inconvenience to working parents. The change may seem like a hassle at first, especially with the likelihood of child care centers getting filled, but it can also open up a door of opportunity. For starters, if you have family living near or with you, you can ask them to watch their kids allowing them to form closer relationships. In the event, you don’t have anyone in your family that’s okay too. Many teens might want to use the extra day off to earn some extra money, and will likely be willing to watch your children for a reasonable price.
Now let’s assume your child is a high school student. This is the perfect time to teach them self-sufficiency. Whether it’s helping around the house, managing errands, or just learning how to cook a simple meal on their own. For those eight to nine hours they have only themselves to rely on. Even if by the end of the year all they learned was to wash clothes or cook a few meals outside the safety of the microwave it is still progress.
Our district has been running with the five-day week since it was founded, and it’s time we move on from it and better adapt to our changing circumstances. With an extra day off there will be benefits both inside and outside the classroom that the five-day week can’t provide us with. Sure the addition of an extra hour, and reduced breaks may not be ideal, but all good things come with a price and given a reduction in days spent during the week at school, the tradeoff can benefit teachers and students alike.
