Episode 165: When Fewer Days Promise More — Do Schools Actually Deliver?

Four days of school, five days of life: the tradeoff sounds tempting, but what actually happens to learning, families, and neighborhoods when districts make the switch? I dig into the latest research on four-day school weeks to separate proven benefits from wishful thinking, and  I map out smart guardrails that keep students at the center.

I start with the “why”: districts once shaved a day to trim budgets, but today many leaders chase teacher recruitment and retention. From there, I unpack student outcomes. Achievement results are mixed and depend on one variable above all: total instructional time. 

Families feel the shift in real ways. Many parents and students report higher morale, more rest, and fewer discipline issues. Yet structured options on the off day are scarce, leaving low-income households to shoulder child care costs and lost access to meals. Equity questions intensify for at-risk students and those with special needs. 

I also surface an overlooked impact: home values can fall 2–4% in areas adopting four-day schedules compared with neighboring five-day districts, likely tied to new child care costs and perceived academic risk.

If your community is considering a shorter week, design is everything. Protect core instructional minutes, schedule literacy and math earlier in the day, and fund fifth-day supports like tutoring, supervised study halls, and meal access. Track achievement, attendance, and behavior monthly, and course-correct fast. Pair calendar changes with real investments in teacher support and planning time. 

Want to help shape the future of your district? Listen, share with a neighbor, and tell me your experience with four-day weeks. Subscribe, leave a review, and send me a message with your questions and stories.

Love my show? Consider being a regular subscriber! Just go to https://tinyurl.com/podcastsupport. 

Transcript

Why Four-Day Weeks Are Spreading

Teacher Recruitment And Retention Reality

Academic Outcomes And Time Tradeoffs

Who Wins And Who Loses

Attendance, Behavior, And Time In School

Budgets And District Finance Effects

Housing Prices And Community Impact

Parent And Student Sentiment

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Public Education Insights, Empowering Parents of Color Podcast. The podcast that converges at the intersection of educational research and parental actions. It's about making the trends, topics, and theories in public education understandable so that you can implement them into practical, actionable strategies that work for your children. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager, turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of motherwit wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about the current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, and the action steps you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. Give me 30 minutes or less, and I'll provide insights on the latest trends, issues, and topics pertaining to this constantly evolving K-12 public education environment. When you were in school, did you ever conceive that your school week would consist of four days instead of five? This was not even heard of when I was in school, yet a four-day school week is on the rise, especially in rural communities. The four-day school week is not really a new phenomenon. It started as early as the 1930s in South Dakota, and it has seen unprecedented growth in its adoption over the past 20 years. In this episode, I discussed the initial reasoning behind why school districts adopt a four-day school week, the impact of a four-day school week on student achievement, the advantages and disadvantages of a four-day school week on teachers, administrators, and parents, and how school districts that have implemented a four-day school week affect housing prices for homeowners who live in these districts. Let's gain some insight on this. The number of schools opting for a shorter week is on the rise. The adoption of four-day school weeks increased around 2008, mostly in rural districts that were trying to cut costs during the Great Recession. While that goal may have worked back then, at the present moment, schools are making the switch to four-day weeks with the goal of boosting teacher recruitment and retention. As far as the financial reasons for schools adopting a four-day school week, research suggests that districts that adopt this schedule only reduce their expenditures by 1% or 2% on average as a result of the schedule change. Four-day school weeks have been adopted in almost 900 school districts nationwide, according to the Associated Press Report in September 2023. That's a noticeable uptick from 2019 when about 650 districts in 24 states had adopted the schedule. In Colorado, nearly two-thirds of the districts run on four-day schedules, and more than a quarter of Missouri districts have four-day weeks. But nationwide, that's still a small segment of the nation's 13,000 plus school districts. As more districts adopt a four-day model, community members, teachers, principals, and district leaders are becoming increasingly supportive, according to the research. Now, when it comes to academic outcomes, research on four-day weeks has yielded mixed results. The key is for districts to not cut back on instructional time in making a change to a four-day school week. In theory, the approach appeals to educators. A 2021 study of four-day school weeks in Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, conducted by the Rand Corporation, found that leaders in districts with the abbreviated schedule believed that it gave them a competitive edge in recruitment and retention of teachers. It should not be surprising to you then that teachers are more supportive than principals and superintendents of the four-day week. 70% of teachers said they support the abbreviated week compared with 60% of school leaders and 57% of district leaders. While teachers may be thinking primarily about how a four-day school week would affect themselves and their students, school and district leaders are more likely thinking about the statistical impacts of such a large-scale change on things like meal operations, transportation, and scheduling. As an aside, can you imagine a four-day school week in a large metropolitan school district where teachers seem to have more personal development days than they did 20 years ago? I can't imagine how much instruction will be provided in this scenario with a four-day school week. Anyway, new research suggests that four-day schedules may not do as much as leaders had hoped in attracting top talent. It seems like it's just a very slight incentive for teachers to move to a different district. Schedule changes may slightly lower teacher turnover, but they don't lead to hiring or keeping more educated or experienced teachers. Worth noting, and as I suspected, studies have found lower student achievement in districts with four-day weeks, particularly when the policy reduces instructional time overall. Shortened schedules are more likely to recruit teachers from other districts rather than target new talent, private school teachers or out-of-state teachers. The fact of the matter is that four-day weeks don't always mean less work for teachers. One study found many four-day districts still require teachers to come in on the fifth day for professional development and other activities. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a four-day school week? Data from a recent study in Oregon found that four-day school week schedules negatively impacted urban high school students' 11th-grade math achievement and on-time graduation rates, and it increased rates of chronic absenteeism among students in non-rural schools. Another study based in Colorado found that adopting a four-day schedule increased one county's juvenile crime rates. And just so you know, most of the research I read centered on four-day school weeks in states like Colorado, Oregon, Missouri, and Oklahoma. These are the states that have a higher percentage of rural communities. Changes to a student's schedule based on a four-day school week could have different effects on academic and behavioral outcomes for high school age teenagers as well as young children. The four-day school week that is implemented by most districts typically has an increased length of weekdays that students are in school and have either Fridays or Mondays off. Longer school days and earlier start times could impact students based on their demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and race. Middle school students, for example, may be more equipped to focus for longer periods of time than elementary students, but their achievement is also likely to be more negatively impacted by earlier start times. Research also suggests that female students may be better able to adapt to longer school days than male students based on studies that indicate that elementary age girls score higher on average on measures of cognitive self-regulation than boys of the same age. The four-day school week schedule negatively impacts Hispanic students more and Native students less than white students. Schools rarely offer structured activities for students on the fifth day or the off day. Results from studies that have tracked four-day school weeks and their effects on achievement, attendance, and behavior have been mixed, especially for achievement. The achievement variances have seemed to be due to the location of the districts, that is, whether schools were located in rural communities or in non-rural communities. Regarding attendance, studies to date indicate that the impacts on attendance find no effect or negligible effects on attendance rates. Several research studies indicated that four-day school weeks improved students' morale and behavior due to increases in students' willingness to go to school and a reduction of disciplinary incidents at school. One of the factors that impact negative achievement effects in school is time spent in school. Research indicates that four-day school week districts with low amounts of time in school, basically meaning averaging about 30 hours of school per week, experience the most detrimental achievement effects. Further, one hour decrease in time in school was related to reductions in math achievement and in reading achievement. Worth noting, school districts in more rural areas don't experience the same negative academic impacts of a four-day school week as districts located in towns or suburbs. Results from the study indicate that four-day school weeks decrease districts' federal revenues and their non-instructional and support services expenditures. These decreases were concentrated specifically in operations, transportation, and food services expenditures and amounted to approximately 2% of the average four-day school district budget. There were no detectable effects of the four-day school week on academic achievement. Based on these analyses, there's not convincing empirical support for one of the primary motivations for why districts make the switch to a four-day school week. All it does financially is preserve local revenue. There is limited direct financial benefit to the district. However, there is a small benefit to the federal government due to savings from providing one fewer day per week of school meals and transportation. Did you know that homeowner valuations decline 2 to 4% in the neighborhoods where schools have a four-day school week when compared to surrounding school districts that have a typical five-day school week? Although these price declines can result from a number of factors related to a four-day school week, child care costs alone can generate these types of price declines. This data was provided from a study conducted in metropolitan school districts surrounding Denver, Colorado. The reasoning behind switching to a four-day school week should be that it creates not only benefits for the homeowners with school-aged children, but also benefits the public within the school district. In other words, if the goal of the four-day school week policy is to attract and retain teachers in order to improve in some way student achievement levels, then all homeowners in the school district should benefit from the policy as well. The idea behind attracting and retaining teachers to a district with a four-day school week was so that the district could do this without increasing wages. These results may be important considerations for you as a homeowner when it comes to voting on future school funding ballot initiatives. How do students, teachers, and parents feel about a four-day school week? Public support seems to be growing. In 2003, 25% of the general public said they would favor the move to a four-day school week, whereas in 2023, 53% of the general public said they would favor the move. As part of their 2021 analysis of four-day school weeks, RAND researchers asked parents of elementary age students in school in Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma how satisfied they were with a shortened school week. Nearly three-fourths of them said they were very satisfied, and just 6% said they were either mildly or quite dissatisfied. Parents of younger children held these opinions in spite of the fact that about 90% of them reported that their children primarily spent the fifth day of the week at home. Such fun for work-at-home parents. Yay! Let's find out if any of my research indicates the childcare issues for parents who work from home when their child is at home on that fifth day. Will child care centers or after school programs step up to fill this gap? In interviews with RAND researchers, parents said they were able to adjust their family schedules to align with the school schedule. In some families, one parent didn't work outside the home. In other families, parents had flexible work schedules that allowed them to be home on the fifth day. Also, some parents reported having multiple generations living in the home with retired or non-working adults able to care for children on the fifth day. Now, the research did not provide any percentage on how many of these households were researched or the demographics of those households. Students seemed to be a big fan of the four-day school week. 85% of high school students who were asked by the RAND researchers about their four-day schedule said they liked it a lot. They tended to spend the fifth day at home or at someone else's home, and they said they spent their spare time catching up on rest, working on school assignments, completing chores, and just hanging out with friends. Nationwide, several school districts with predominantly low-income students that had moved to a four-day school week ended up returning to the traditional five-day school week out of concern that fewer school days negatively impacted low-income students. In rural four-day school week districts, the concern is that these small, rural, isolated school districts don't have the resources to support students and families outside of the school setting. These families are often met with the lack of child care and the loss of free or reduced price student meals that are provided by the government in the National School Lunch Program, which is applicable only on the days students are in school. Parents tend to not only be concerned about child care on the additional day out of school, but also are concerned about available resources on the off day for at-risk students and students with special needs. Parents were also concerned about the length of the school day, especially for younger students, and the impact on their attention as well as their engagement. Overall, parents in states where there are a majority of four-day school week districts like Colorado, Missouri, and Montana preferred the four-day school week over the traditional five-day week. They indicated that the impact of a four-day school week on their family and the success of their children in school was positive. Although the reasons for making the change to a four-day school week varies from district to district, one thing that is a constant is that schools that convert to a four-day school week typically do not change back to a traditional five-day school week format because the new schedule becomes part of the culture of the district. Parents, teachers, and school administrators that convert to a four-day school week are concerned about student academic performance. Their concern focuses on the loss of approximately 20% of the days of instruction, even though the instructional hours are theoretically included in the other four days. What has been noted in the research is that in the first two years of implementation of a four-day school week, student scores are better than in neighboring districts. However, once the four-day school week becomes part of the culture of the district, the loss of the days of instruction appears to negatively affect student performance. Therefore, for school districts seriously considering converting to a four-day school week, a strategy must be put in place to monitor student performance to ensure that adequate student achievement remains steady and or improves over time. The bottom line is that there's still a gap in the research as far as how after-school programs and child care centers will fill the gap of needed child care services on the day that school is not in session with a four-day school week policy. Future research should definitely focus on investigating the effect of four-day school week schedules on the school. On students, family, and community outcomes like child care expenses, parental employment choices, and other considerations. So, what can you do with the information that I've just discussed? Here are the action steps you can take regarding the four-day school week initiatives. I basically provided this information and this discussion to keep you informed about one of the latest trends in the K-12 public education space. A four-day school week may or may not impact you personally, but if you are planning to move to a different state where this model is prevalent, the impact on home pricing alone may be something for you to consider. Here are this episode's takeaways. Four-day school weeks have been adopted in almost 900 school districts nationwide, according to the Associated Press report in September 2023. That's a noticeable uptick from 2019, when about 650 districts in 24 states had adopted the schedule. In Colorado, nearly two-thirds of the districts run on a four-day schedule, and more than a quarter of Missouri districts have four-day weeks. But nationwide, that's still only a small segment of the nation's 13,000 plus school districts. New research suggests that four-day schedules may not do as much as leaders had hoped in attracting top talent. It seems like it's just a very slight incentive for teachers to move to a different district. Schedule changes may slightly lower teacher turnover, but they don't lead to hiring or keeping more educated or experienced teachers. Results from studies that have tracked four-day school weeks and their effects on achievement, attendance, and behavior have been mixed, especially for achievement. The achievement variances have seemed to be due to the location of the districts, that is, whether schools were located in rural communities or non-rural communities. Regarding attendance, studies to date indicate that the impacts on attendance find no effect or negligible effects on attendance rates. Several research studies indicated that a four-day school week improves students' morale and behavior due to increases in student willingness to go to school and a reduction of disciplinary incidents at school. Parents, teachers, and school administrators that convert to a four-day school week are concerned about student academic performance. Their concern focuses on the loss of approximately 20% of the days of instruction, even though the instructional hours are theoretically included in the other four days. What has been noted in the research is that in the first two years of implementation of a four-day school week, student scores are better than in neighboring districts. However, once the four-day week becomes part of the culture of the district, the loss of days of instruction appears to negatively affect student performance. Therefore, for school districts that are serious about considering converting to a four-day school week, a strategy must be put in place to monitor student performance to ensure that adequate student achievement remains steady and or improves over time. Now it's my turn to hear from you. What have been your experiences with four-day school weeks? Has this been something that your district is considering? Let me know your thoughts by leaving me a text comment on my podcast website, k12educhininsights.bussprout.com. You can leave that text message by going to the episode description page and clicking on the Send Me a Text Message link. Again, that's K12Education Insights.bussprout.com. I look forward to hearing from you. If you enjoyed this episode, why not listen to another episode from my catalog? It can take as little as 15 minutes of your day. And remember, new episodes come out every Tuesday. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to come back for more insights on K12 educational topics that impact you and your children. And just so you don't miss another episode, be sure to subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to. Until next time, learn something new every day.