It’s a Monday in September, but with schools closed, the three children in the Pruente household have nowhere to go. Callahan, 13, twists herself into a backbend while 7-year-old Hudson plays with a balloon and 10-year-old Keegan plays the piano.
Like a growing number of students across the U.S., the Pruente children are on a four-day school schedule, a change implemented this fall by their district in Independence, Missouri.
It’s great for the kids. “I have three days of school vacation!” Hudson exclaimed.
But their mother, Brandi Pruente, who teaches French in a neighboring district in suburban Kansas City, is frustrated as she searches for activities to entertain her children and avoid using electronics while working five days a week.
“I feel like I’m in the COVID shutdown again,” she said.
Hundreds of school systems across the country have adopted four-day weeks in recent years, especially in rural and western US. Districts cite cost savings and teacher recruitment benefits, though some have questioned the impact on students who have already missed significant schooling. learning during the pandemic.
For parents, there are also the added complications and costs of arranging childcare for that extra weekday. While surveys show that parents generally approve, support declines among those with younger children.
On this Monday, Brandi Pruente was home because Hudson had a mysterious rash on his arm. Her eldest was in charge most weeks, with occasional help from grandparents. She has no interest in paying for the childcare the district provides for $30 a day. Multiplied by several children, it adds up.
“I want my kids to be in an educational environment,” she said, “and I don’t want to pay for someone to babysit them.”
Even then, district-provided child care isn’t all that convenient because it isn’t available at every school. And in other four-day districts, so many parents are adjusting their work schedules or bringing in family to help that child care has been cut due to low enrollment.
That’s especially concerning for parents of younger children and people whose disabilities can make finding child care an additional challenge.
Across the more than 13,000 school districts nationwide, nearly 900 are operating on a reduced schedule, down from 662 in 2019 and just over 100 in 1999, said Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University.
The practice has especially taken off in rural communities, where families often have a stay-at-home parent or a grandparent nearby. But Independence, best known for its ties to President Harry Truman, is anything but rural, with 14,000 students, about 70% of whom qualify for government-subsidized meals.
The district offers meals on Mondays, but not at every school. From October, students with problems can go to school on Mondays for extra help. Superintendent Dale Herl said conversations with officials in other districts have convinced him that parents will arrange child care for the other students.
“You have to go back and look at, you know, what do parents do in the summer? What do they do during spring break or Christmas break? he said, adding that schools already had weekdays off for occasions such as teacher conferences.
In Missouri, the number of districts that routinely get three-day weekends has more than doubled since the pandemic hit, from 12% to 30%. Some Missouri lawmakers have pushed back, arguing that students need more time with teachers. One failed legislative proposal would have given students in four-day districts the option to transfer to a private school, leaving their home districts to foot the bill.
Some choose a reduced schedule to save money. An analysis by the Economic Commission of the States found that such savings were modest, totaling 0.4% to 2.5% of their annual budgets.
For many school systems, including Independence, which extended the other four school days, the hope is to boost teacher recruitment and retention. Some school systems that make the switch are competing with districts that can pay up to $15,000 more, with just 15 minutes of extra travel time, said Jon Turner, an associate professor of education at Missouri State University.
But when one district switches to a shortened school week, it gains a recruiting advantage over the others.
Other districts are quickly following suit, making reduced schedules a “Band-Aid” solution with diminishing returns, said Missouri Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven.
“If everyone gets a four-day school week,” she said, “that is no longer a recruitment strategy.”
In some communities, a four-day work week is better for families. In Turner District in north-central Montana, taking Fridays avoids situations such as basketball games played in districts three or more hours away, which keep only a small number of students in school, said Superintendent Tony Warren.
The change also offers a new day to work on family farms in the district with just over 50 students, Warren said, although he now also sees some larger districts adopting the schedule.
“They are making the switch to the four-day week because all the districts around them have adopted a four-day week,” he said.
The effect on academics is murky, although some studies show the schedule doesn’t hurt test scores if the other four school days are extended to make up the time, Thompson said.
However, the Rand Corporation found that performance differences in four-day districts, while initially difficult to observe, became apparent over several years.
That worries Karyn Lewis of the research organization NWEA, whose recent research found that students are not making up for all the academic ground they have lost during the pandemic.
“Now is not the time to do anything that jeopardizes the amount of education children receive,” she said.
In Independence, the reduced class schedule created opportunities to help struggling students with an off-day program that began in October. Older students, meanwhile, can take classes at a community college.
Only a few large districts have implemented a four-day work week. The 27J district north of Denver made the move in 2018 after several failed attempts to raise taxes to boost teacher wages. Because surrounding districts could pay more, teacher turnover had become a problem.
Superintendent Will Pierce said the district’s own surveys now show nearly 80% of parents and 85% of teachers support the schedule. “Quality of life is what they report,” he said.
Demand for child care hasn’t been huge, with fewer than 300 children taking advantage of the day-off program in the district of 20,000 students, he said.
Still, a study published this year found that test scores in the 27J district fell slightly, and home prices also took a hit compared to those in neighboring districts.
“Voters need to think about tradeoffs,” said Frank James Perrone, one of the study’s authors and an assistant professor of educational leadership at Indiana University.
The number of teachers retiring in Independence has decreased and applications have increased since the schedule changed. And that’s all good, Brandi Pruente acknowledged.
“But,” she added, “it should not be at the expense of the community or the families in the district.”
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