The Four Day Week

Our academic calendar has followed a relatively traditional schedule over the years. For the most part, it has been stable year over year with both the number of instructional days, starting date, and ending date. In our community, most people prefer a calendar that starts in late August and ends the first semester by Christmas. Additionally, constituents like to see the school year wrapped up by Memorial Day. The last major change to the structure of our calendar happened about a decade ago with the addition of the weekly early dismissal. For the most part, this feature of our calendar is pretty much engrained in our culture at this point. However, based on a few random comments over the years that suggested we supplant the early dismissal with a full day of inservice, I developed that model for internal review this year. It was ultimately rejected by the cabinet because in order to get the same impact with professional development it would have pushed the end date of the school year well into June. Perhaps next year I'll show you what that looks like. The other substantive change came in 2015 when we moved the start date a week later in order to comply with a change to state law.

Based community preferences and a few other locally or state imposed variables, our annual calendar discussion is pretty non-eventful. We create a 'base' model and then a variation on that model where a vacation day or two is switched around. Feedback and input is solicited in January, a hearing is held in February; and the calendar is subsequently adopted. In most cases it looks very similar to the calendar from the previous year.  

Now, before we get into the topic of a 'Four Day Week' (as the title here suggests), let me be clear: this isn't an idea that I am proposing. I'm not advocating for a change to the calendar. I just think the discussion is, well interesting. And the fact our basic structure hasn't undergone any significant change in over a decade suggests it is appropriate from time to time to examine the status quo. Am I missing something? Do YOU, the constituent see a value that warrants exploration? Frankly, it is better to discuss and disseminate now as opposed to January and February when it's too late.

To start, the idea of a four day school week is novel in Iowa. To date, I believe there are less than a handful of districts that operate a calendar in this fashion. There are many reasons a district may decide to move in this direction, but a common reason often cited is the financial impact. By lengthening the school day instead and trading for fewer days of instruction, a district can save 20% off the top when it comes to transportation costs. Same goes with paraprofessionals, food service, and perhaps even clerical staff (to a degree). Energy costs are likely to be lower as well, although probably not to the tune of 20% since you simply can't turn the furnace off every Friday. But, in terms of  salary costs for certified teachers, I doubt you are looking at a savings at all. In fact, salaries for this classification of employment are likely to increase at a rate similar to their counterparts at school districts that operate a traditional five day a week calendar.

Instead, in at least one Iowa district, the idea of a four day work week is being used as a retention strategy. The idea calls for 150 days of instruction (as opposed to 180 days in the traditional calendar). State law, by the way, requires school districts to have either 180 days of instruction OR 1,080 hours of instruction. In this proposal, the district will have 1,095 hours of instruction during that 150 days, meaning they will be fully in compliance with the compulsory attendance laws. The strategy employed is based on a hypothesis that young professionals will be drawn to a work schedule that honors time over higher compensation that might be available in larger districts. 

Another reason at least one district is considering a move to a four day work week is to mitigate and hopefully eliminate the phenomenon know as the summer slide. In this proposal, the school year is simply lengthened to accommodate the number of four day weeks. Known more commonly as a 'year round' schedule, it simply shortens breaks to accommodate the weekly schedule. The current challenge with a structure like this is that it is in conflict with state law and would require a special waiver to adopt.

In the final analysis it is critically important for districts to understand their constituency and realize that schools serve a dual purpose. Granted, our primary mission is now and will always be the education of an informed citizenry. However, we would be kidding ourselves if we didn't recognize the role we play in providing other services that our parents and communities count on: childcare and meals. It will be important to ensure that the general public, and especially parents have an opportunity to weigh in on these issues. Luckily in both the cases mentioned above, the districts are well in tune to the needs of their communities and are solution focused. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for them!