More rural school districts are moving to a four-day week to attract and retain teachers

Tre Sisco wanted a teaching job with a good work-life balance after graduating from Missouri Southern State University in 2023.

During his job hunt, he learned Missouris Independence School District was moving to a nontraditional, four-day school week a change that would give staff and students Mondays off.

The district is part of a growing trend in rural communities, where schools are switching to four-day school weeks to attract and retain high-quality teachers amid funding challenges and a nationwide teacher shortage.

Sisco, now a high school business class teacher and football coach in Independence, said the long weekend allows him time to prepare lesson plans for the week, go to the gym and care for his 10-month-old son.

Its been amazing to have an extra day to relax, Sisco said.

I spend time with family and get work done.

Its perfect.

Districts with four-day school weeks are more likely to be in states that mandate a certain number of instructional hours rather than instructional days, according to Paul Thompson , an associate professor at Oregon State University who studies the four-day concept.

This gives districts the flexibility to extend the school day and shorten the week.

Students in these districts typically have longer school days, but the extended weekend is popular with them, as it is with most teachers and parents, according to experts and school officials.

For parents who need childcare on that extra day, some school districts offer daycare centers.

The growth is greater in some small rural communities, in part, because they receive less state funding and cant afford to offer competitive salaries.

Independence School District leaders said the shortened week has helped them compete with neighboring districts that have larger budgets and pay teachers higher salaries.

Roughly 2,100 schools in 900 districts across 26 states have a four-day week, according to Thompson.

Four-day school weeks have seen the most growth in the last decade in states west of the Mississippi River such as Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and Montana, he said.

Some cash-strapped districts are also shortening their week in hopes of cutting overall costs, Thompson said.

The savings, however, have been minimal.

Most school districts with four-day weeks saw only a 1-2% reduction in expenditures related to transportation and hourly staff, Thompson said.

Less stress for all Dale Herl, Independence School District superintendent, said attracting and retaining the best teachers was one of the key reasons the district moved to a four-day week in 2023.

Before the change, the district struggled to hire experienced teachers, particularly in math, science and industrial technology, Herl said.

Now, teacher applications are up 360% since 2023, the majority of applicants being veteran teachers, Herl said.

The extended weekend is a draw because it gives teachers more work-life balance, he said.

When I talk to teachers, they say the weekend feels like its their own again and theyre using those Mondays to prep and to grade for the upcoming week, Herl said.

The extra day off also allows students to catch up on homework, get tutoring, attend class makeups, hold club events, and take courses at community colleges, Herl said.

The district also has sites that offer childcare on Mondays for parents in need.

Andrew Fite, a high school senior in the Independence district, said he enjoys the extended weekend because it gives him more time to do homework, study with friends and spend time with family.

He has also been able to pick up extra hours at part-time jobs.

Fite said he sometimes uses Monday to meet with teachers, if they are in the school building, to go over class materials.

School can be pretty tiring, and I know a lot of people dread it and I think having a four-day week gives you a little bit of a reset and an extra day of your weekend, Fite said.

On Monday, you have the freedom of what to do.

So, if you want to just sit back and relax and prepare your mind for the week, you can do that.

Fites mother, Beckie Fite, said she fully supports the four-day week.

Beckie Fite, who also has a daughter in ninth grade, said the weekends with her kids feel less rushed, allowing her to spend more quality time with them.

She has also noticed her kids are performing better academically.

I love it, and I wish they would have done it when my kids were little, Beckie Fite said.

The kids are less stressed, the families are less stressed, the teachers are less stressed.

Its hard to argue with that.

A double-edged sword For the 27J School District in Colorado , just outside of Denver, teacher recruitment was also a key factor in the switch to four-day weeks in 2018.

Superintendent Will Pierce said his district of 24,025 students receives roughly 18% less state funding than some of the larger districts in the Denver area, making it harder to offer competitive salaries to teachers.

So, school officials decided to shorten the week, a perk that has decreased teacher turnover from 26% in the 2018-2019 school year to 11% in the 2023-2024 school year.

The school week runs Tuesday through Friday from about 8:30 a.m.

to 4:30 p.m., Pierce said.

The district faced some challenges with the new schedule in the first couple of years, he said, and some parents and teachers left.

One top concern for parents was Monday childcare, he said.

However, six years on, the majority of school families have found solutions, and a small percentage use the districts daycare on Monday, Pierce said.

Our parents ...

say they love having the longer weekend with their kids, Pierce said.

And many of our staff still work on Monday, but they appreciate the mindless Saturday and Sunday, and then they can spend Monday gearing up for the week.

Jessica Lore, a single mother with three children ages 7, 13 and 15 in 27J schools, said she had mixed feelings about the four-day week.

While the extended weekend gives her kids more time to relax and unwind, she believes they would better grasp the subjects and class lessons with an additional day in school.

Lore, an accountant, said she also works full-time, so her teenagers have to watch the youngest child at home on Monday.

The kids, she said, usually spend that day watching TV or playing with their toys.

And she spends more money on groceries because the kids are home more, she said.

Its kind of a double-edged sword, Lore said.

Its working in some places, but not in others Research shows the four-day school week has had mixed results.

A 2021 study published by RAND , a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, found that student achievement in schools with four-day weeks did not improve as quickly as in schools with traditional five-day weeks.

The study also concluded that the rate of student absenteeism was about the same in four-day and five-day week schools.

Additionally, elementary school students in districts with four-day weeks reported getting more sleep, but there was no difference for middle school and high school students.

Van Schoales , a senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center, which has also studied the four-day schedule, believes academic achievement in four-day week districts is lagging because the school days are longer and children have limited attention spans.

My guess is the quality of the instructional time and the quality of learning, it doesnt get better, Schoales said.

Its not like you can say to kids ...

instead of eight hours a day go to school for 10 hours a day and they are going to be just as attentive, thats just not going to happen.

The four-day model also hasnt won the support of all teachers, Thompson said.

He said some teachers have quit because they find that on the fifth day, they are still working just as much while meeting with students, teaching makeup classes and writing lesson plans.

Thompson said only about 10% of school districts have reverted to a five-day week after school officials decided the four-day week wasnt working.

Among those districts is the Jasper Independent School District in Jasper, Texas, which returned to a traditional five-day week this year after having a four-day school week for two years.

In some places, its working toward the (districts) goals and in other places, its not, Thompson said.

That brings a question of, if not all districts are seeing these benefits, is this a desirable educational model and does it work for students?.

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