Tuesday Talks!

Inside the Four‑Day School Week: Savings, Stress, and Student Impact

• Dr. Tiffany • Season 3 • Episode 10

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What happens when school loses a day but keeps the promise of learning? We dive into the four‑day school week sweeping districts across the U.S and unpack the real forces behind it and talk about the very human ripple effects felt at home and in classrooms.

From the teacher’s vantage point, a shorter week can be a lifeline: space to breathe, plan, and reset without the daily rush. On the student side, there's more time and family side, for SAT prep, jobs, sports, and sleep. From the perspective, parents can feel the scramble for childcare, absorb an extra day of meals without school breakfast and lunch, and juggle work schedules that don’t bend around a new calendar.

Dr. Tiffany explore the research, share parent stories and talk about equity head‑on. If your district is considering a shift, Dr. Tiffany shares the exact questions for parents, teachers and school leaders to ask the "powers that be". Would a four‑day school week be a solution or a setback in your community? 

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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, welcome back for another episode of Tuesday Talks. So glad to have you with me for another week. Be sure if you are finding any of these episodes enlightening, thought-provoking, share them, comment, give me your feedback. I go back, I read the comments, and it lets me know where you're at on the spectrum of whatever the topic is for that week. Remember, we're talking about all things education, the way that it impacts teachers, students, families, how the community needs to support, how the schools need to give more support. So any of those topics resonate with you, be sure to join me every week here for Tuesday Talks. And be sure to hit that like button, subscribe, comment, and come join the conversation. So I have another great topic for you this week. I have been hearing more and more about a four-day school week. So imagine this. Your child only goes to school for four days a week. Maybe they have Friday off, maybe they have Monday off. But they're not in school five days. They're only in school four days. So for me, having worked in the schools as a speech therapist, four-day work week, sign me up. Like I will take it over anything. Sign me up. Because now on that weekday that I'm off, I feel like, okay, this is when I can go to the doctor. This is when I can go do, I don't know, get my nails done. This is when I can take my kids to their appointments, the dentist office, I don't know, get new shoes, whatever, or just lounge around, right? You got a whole extra day off. So that's how I feel as a person working in the schools. Now, if I was a parent, I would be like, and what am I supposed to do with my kid for this day off? Because work for me, still calling. But now my kid, I need to find somewhere for them to go. So a lot of times we are thinking about these types of topics from our perspective, right? Whether you work in the school or whether you are the parent sending your kid to school. So the four-day work week is really a fast growing change in American education right now. There was an NEA article that came out in August of 2025 that said over 2,100 schools had adopted a four-day school week as of the 2022-2023 school year. 2,100 schools across the country. It is a growing trend. And I want to kind of start with the big picture. So as we think about more and more schools adopting this four-day school week, it's more than just a trend. It's more than just a moment. This seems like it's a movement. States like Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma are going towards this four-day school week. And a lot of the districts that I found that are using this made this change for similar reasons, right? Money. Remember, we talked about here, as much as schools want to help kids, at the end of the day, a lot of decisions that they make come down to budget because they're operating on a limited budget. So there's less fuel being used for buses because they're only driving kids around four days a week, less utility costs, fewer substitute teachers. And for other school districts, it was about teachers specifically. Schools struggling to attract and keep educators are offering this four-day week as one way to kind of sweeten the deal. And think about this. A lot of the districts that are using this four-day work week as this kind of lure, like, come work for us, they are in more rural areas. So these are districts that are kind of out way outside the big city limits in the sticks. Like that's what I call it here where I am in the boonies. So it's really hard to recruit teachers to want to come work and therefore live in these very small communities that are not close to a big city. And when teachers retire, they don't have enough applicants to replace the teachers who are retiring or who choose to just leave the profession. So this was a way to get attention. Come work for our district, and you only have to work four days a week. That sounds like a really sweet deal. I already talked about how I would look at that day off. Like, let me get caught up on personal things. And that's what it really was. Teachers have found that this creates a more balanced work life experience where their whole week is not consumed by teaching. They have a three-day weekend and life seems better. So there are some pros, and I want to talk about those first. But if you're listening, if your district is using a four-day work week, like let me know in the comments, in the feedback, how has this impacted you as a teacher or as a parent? If your district hasn't adopted a four-day work week, what do you think about it? Do you think that that would be a good thing? Do you think it would be a challenging thing? So, in the research, it has shown that recruitment and retention is the number one reason why districts pull out this four-day week offering. Um, we've talked about it on here that a lot of times um we're seeing a decrease in the workforce, right? Like teachers are leaving the profession. They're burnt out, they don't feel like they have the support that they need. It's all kinds of madness going on in some schools with student behavior, even parent behavior too. Um, and so that recruitment and retention was the number one reasons. They're more teachers are more likely to apply to a district with a shorter work week, and it helps kind of put a just a small damper on that burnout. I'm sure these teachers still probably feel a lot of what five-day a week teachers feel, but you have an extra day to kind of decompress, right? The second reason that districts and teachers are really in support of this is the district saves money. They're saving thousands of dollars on transportation, on utilities. And that's money that they say can be redirected to classrooms or staff. Now, some districts give the teachers the complete fifth day off from work. You know, do your thing. You don't need to come to the building, we don't need to see you. Other districts use that fifth day for training, for meetings, extra prep time, and the teachers can work from home, they can participate virtually in these trainings or professional developments. So, you know, when I made the transition from working in person as SLP to working from home, and I could be, you know, in my pajamas and working, that felt very different from being in the building and all dressed up to work, right? So that fifth day could be turned into some training time, some time for teachers to get caught up on things as well. So some of the pros that the article talked about for students and families was attendance. So they saw fewer absences because all of those medical appointments, going to the doctor, to the dentist, to get a physical, to play sports, all these things could be done on that day off. So families took advantage of that. Also, they found that some students reported less stress, um, less anxiety, especially for those older students who, you know, just really appreciate the longer weekend. Maybe they're working. That was another thing that came up: flexibility. High schoolers working part-time jobs. Now you have a whole day that you can dedicate to working, make a little extra money if they're doing any sports, training for those sports, or using the day for college prep, getting prepped to go into you know, platform military, go to basic training, and then just families get more family time together. So, so just thinking about all of those. If your kid had Fridays off, what would that mean to you? Would it mean more family outings? Would it mean, you know, slower mornings? Or would it be a bigger headache trying to juggle work and an extra day of child care? Because it really could go both ways. My son goes to a student-directed learning school, and every five to seven weeks, they get a whole week off from school. An entire week. Now, if I didn't work from home, that would be very challenging. I would have to find him child care for the whole week, right? Like, and this is happening multiple times throughout the school year. So, but it works for me because of the lifestyle that I have chosen to work from home. But I can see where that could be a pretty cumbersome responsibility to always have to find a place for your kid to go, especially when they're younger, and you just can't say, you know, my kid is 10, so hang out downstairs while I'm working and he can be self-sufficient. But you have a younger one, a kindergartner, first grader, they need more supervision. And so they just can't be hanging out while you're working from home, or maybe you don't have family that you can just drop them off to. So now you're running in to spend extra money on childcare. Now I did run across some districts who have worked it out with community partners. You know, I always say on here, it can't just be schools and parents, it has to be schools, parents, and community, all three together. So some districts have partnered with organizations in the community to provide discounted um child care rates for those off days. Um, and also have um partnered with schools to provide even free child care for some situations as well. So as I was, you know, prepping for the show, I'm like, what are some stories out there from people who are actually living this day to day? That's why I want to hear from you in the comments if this is you, because I'm really interested to know like how you're managing this. Is it a great thing? Is it a not so great thing? Does it kind of just depend? I did come across a story about a high school junior, um, 16 years old, runs track, and also works part-time. And when his district switched to a four-day week, his Fridays became his catch up day. It was a day he could get caught up on schoolwork, it was a day he could get caught up on workouts, it was a day he could get caught up on extra work, you know, an extra shift at work. And he tended to spend his mornings on those day out, days off, finishing up homework, studying for the SATs, prepping all that stuff. By noon, he was at his job. And then later in the evening, he went to practice for his team sport associated with his school. And most importantly, he said he actually got a little downtime before the weekend rush of games, chores, family commitments, more work hours. So for him, the four-day week was a gift. It equaled less stress, more control of his schedule, and building work experience without cutting into class time. So thinking about it again from an older student's perspective, it could be. Now, this kid sounds like he's very responsible, very independent. You know, we have some middle schoolers, high school, high schoolers who could be it's challenging to motivate. They would just watch YouTube all day, they would just play video games all day. So then the benefits aren't really there. You know, the cons outweigh the pros. Um, but that's how this kid found that four-day work week to be a gift, essentially. And so it's really working for him. So I think that, you know, overall, and you'll see as we, you know, talk about some of the downsides too, it it really is specific to the community that the school is in, whether or not this works really well or it doesn't, right? Because what works for one family, one school district does not work for another family or another school district. So I think whatever districts are deciding to do this, I really hope they're taking the time to get input from the community. Because these kids are gonna be out in the community, get input from the community, get input from families to know like what everybody thinks. Now, some people are gonna be happy and some people aren't. That's the nature of any decision. But as long as the majority is on board with it, I think that is something that could be tried out. But the downside of the four-day work week, because you know, for every pro, there are cons. Teachers. Now, what I found that teachers said was one of their biggest complaints was school days are longer. So, in order to meet a lot of state guidelines, students have to have so many instructional minutes per day. We know, like 180 days in the school year for the most part, for most school districts, but 180 school days broken down into a specific number of instructional minutes per day. And so, with teachers, some of these teachers, their school day was starting at 7:30 and it wasn't ending until 4 or 4:15. That's a long day. So, yes, you're getting the day off, but those minutes that those kids are missing from instructional time is being embedded to the other four days of the week. So imagine, if you can, a kindergarten teacher, which I think are fairies here on earth, because to elect to deal with five-year-olds, some who may have experienced preschool, some who may have not, even for a regular six and a half hour school day. And now we're going to like eight hours, that's a long time. That's a long time. So teachers were like, hey, this isn't worth it. Like, I know I'm getting a day off, but I'm like either laid out on the couch trying to recover from what I experienced on these longer school days, or I'm just mentally drained and not even able to get caught up on anything. Um, they also mentioned workload compression. The work that still has to happen on that fifth day doesn't just disappear. It's still there. So teachers end up oftentimes grading on those days off, working on planning for those days off. I mean, on those days off, so that time off isn't really do whatever you want to do with it. It really is, hey, use it to get caught up on some stuff. And again, for some teachers, grading papers at home feels real different than grading papers in the school. Working on planning at home feels way different than planning in the school building. So some teachers just hey, charge it to the game. I'm doing whatever I want to do on my day off, and I'll work longer on the four days a week after school to get caught up on stuff. So some made it work for them in different ways. Some of the downsides for the students, um, there was a lot of mixed research on learning loss, which I'm sure is something everybody's thinking about. Like, okay, so they're going to school four days a week, not five days a week. A lot of times you hear all these research studies out there, you know, overall math scores are down, reading scores are down. Like, so now we're gonna give kids a day off and think that that's gonna get better. Like, that doesn't make a lot of sense. So the research is still mixed. Like, you know, whilst a lot of schools are switching over to this, it still is relatively new. And so research just hasn't been able to track this over time yet. But some show studies have shown no impact, and other studies have shown small declines or regression, and particularly in math. And they found that younger students seem to be the most affected, which is, you know, kind of concerning because we know that, you know, if you were having a if you had a kid in school during COVID, especially a younger kid, like my kid did kindergarten during COVID, I can tell you right now, as much as I worked with him at home and you know, he had his time with his teacher, now he's in fifth grade. I still see some of those gaps, especially in like the phonemic awareness, like the reading skills. And I still see some of those gaps that I know are directly tied back to him doing kindergarten at home. So imagine you have a kindergartner, five-year-old, that's now going to school four days a week. They're not coming in with a lot of preschool skills, knowledge, and now they're only going to school four days a week. So as a teacher, you might feel like, okay, yeah, the school day is longer, but we're also talking about five-year-olds who are tuckered out, you know, after a six and a half hour school day. So imagine like an eight-hour school day. Um, it can be really challenging. You know how little kids are? When they get tired, the more tired they get, the more honory and moody that they get to. And then, you know, learning's out the window because who can learn when they're irritated, frustrated, tired, whatever, right? So there was some learning loss that was found in um the younger kids, particularly in math. There were also um some gaps in equity. And what I mean by that is like, again, not all families could afford childcare. Not all kids had a safe, structured environment to be in for their days off. There are a lot of kids who rely on school breakfast and lunch that are missing the opportunity to get that nutrition because the school is closed on that fifth day. You would be surprised if you're not, you know, if you don't have a background in education, how many kids and families really rely on the breakfast and lunch programs at school? Like, think about what that does to your grocery bill as a family who's living at or below the poverty line. I don't need to buy breakfast food for five days out of the week. I don't need to buy lunch food for five days out of the week in my budget. I just need to prepare three meals a day on Saturday and Sunday and dinner for five nights a week. That now a four-day week, you are now responsible for three additional meals on that day off that you weren't really accounting for before. And if you have more than one kid, that's a lot of mouths to feed. So it can become um quite concerning when it really pertains to that to the equity piece because not all families are created equal and can, you know, go to these, you know, bulk stores and buy extra snacks. I just mentioned my son was off for the week. That affected the grocery bill because you know when they're home, all they're doing is eating, watching TV, and my kid is doing some work on his week off, but he's just eating constantly. So that affected the grocery bill for this month. Like, you know, I can account for that, but there are some families, you know, who can't. Also, you know, teachers are really focusing on this fatigue as well, um, not just for themselves, but also for the students. Again, that unstructured time. We have kids who come from neighborhoods that aren't super safe, and now they have an extra day to be in that type of environment, especially teens, if they're not using that time productively, they may start to drift towards more screen time, more disengagement, more hanging out with the wrong crowd. And so then that becomes a real thing to consider when you're thinking about is this the right decision for the school itself? It can't just be, is this the right decision for me as an educator, as a parent? We really have to think about how this impacts everyone because if a kid starts to run with the wrong cloud crowd and starts to do different, you know, illegal activity, that affects the whole community. So it really does need to be something that pulls in the input from everybody. It can't just be a decision made at the top. Oh, I saw this district over here did really well, so we're gonna try it in our district. It can't be a decision made unilaterally. It I think if it's done that way, it's designed to fail because you haven't taken input from the community and the staff, the parents, the people who are really impacted from it. Um, again, as I was looking for stories to see like who was impacted by this through living the experience. We talked about the high school that really found it, like I said, as a gift. And then um, I found a story about a single mom who had a third grader and a kindergartner, so two kids, and the district switched to a four-day school week and they have Fridays off. And her reality was she works full-time in a hospital. And Fridays for her were some of the busiest days. So that meant most Thursday nights, she is scrambling to figure out okay, who's gonna watch the kids tomorrow? Sometimes it was a neighbor, sometimes she paid for daycare, which ate into her budget, and some days she just had to take time off. Um, and she told the district, I love the idea of more family time. That sounds great. But if I'm losing hours at work just to make this four-day schedule work, then it's not a win for me. That's what she said. So she's looking at it through the lens of, hey, this is impacting my paid time off. I'm having to use that up so that I can be home with my kids. And if they're off every single Friday, the imbalance doesn't work for me. And so that's a real concern. And I think that that has to be considered before this decision is being made. Now, on the flip side of that, there was a family that had two kids, a seventh grader and a tenth grader. Both parents work hybrid jobs, so they're at home a couple days a week. And for them, Fridays off have become a family day. They run errands, they schedule doctor's appointments, they volunteer. They said their kids are less stressed, more engaged at school because they know that they've got an extra day to rest or to get ahead. So for this family, that four-day week actually strengthened their family bond, their routines, and it really gave them something precious in the busy day-to-day world of work and home life. It gave them more time together. So imagine you are a parent of a second grader. Thursday night comes around and your child says, Yay, no school tomorrow. But you know you still have to be to work at 8:30 in the morning. What's your plan? Grandparents, babysitter? Do you just burn through your vacation days? Like these are all real questions that parents are working through when the four-day work week doesn't give them this feeling of euphoria of like, oh, yes. Now I'm not gonna lie, my kid gets the week off, and I'm kind of grateful. I don't have to wake up as early, I don't have to burn gas, driving him to and from school. Yes, I'm buying more groceries. Yes, he is still, you know, bugging me while I'm working, but you know, I just redirect him to go take care of business himself. But I kind of look at it as like a reset for both of us, and I'm kind of glad that his teachers get that time to reset too, because teaching can be stressful. And if we can all reset and recharge, I think we can come back into the next five to seven weeks of school with a different mindset, different attitude, you know, really go get them kind of spirit. But I know even for you know, some mom friends that I have at his school, that doesn't, that's not their story. That's not their story at all. They're like, what? This week came around so fast, now it's another week off. Like, you know, they signed up for it, you know, because it's a private school. So of course you enroll your kid in it, knowing what the schedule is, but still it can become quite the burden, depending on what the home life work situation is like for the parents. So we talked a little bit about the um research. And according to a 2023 Education Week survey, 70% of teachers expressed support for a four-day school week compared to 60% of school leaders and 57% of school of um district leaders. So a lot of teachers are in support of this, and that is what you know. We talked about this as retention and um per peaking applications for some school districts. That's what really is driving this is that retention. Spiking application rates, keeping their teacher retention numbers high, that is what initially drove this. Um, and then they started to work backwards to look at, okay, what are the benefits for kids? What are the benefits for families? But that initial thing was, hey, we're losing losing teachers. We can't recruit teachers. What can we do? What can we do? And then that's where this four-day school week came from. There was another um study that was done um in Oregon and then one in Colorado, which showed kind of opposing results because Oregon showed declines in reading and math, especially in the elementary grades. In Colorado, they found improvement in attendance, but academic performance kind of stayed the same. They didn't see an improvement or regression. It kind of just stayed the same, but they saw a drastic improvement in attendance. And if you watched um the Tuesday Talks episode with Clarissa, she talked about middle school being an area that really needs all of our focus and attention due to all the hormonal shifts and you know, brain development and just the way school is structured and a lot of kids being bored at school, that that's when attendance starts to dip. That's when you know behavioral issues start to rise. So in Colorado, they saw um improvement in attendance. So that speaks right there a lot. Kids are coming to school more, they're coming to school more often, so they're getting exposed to the content more, and maybe that drives state testing scores up. There are all kinds of ways to look at it. But on the downside, um, one of the um superintendent principals said that it really hasn't improved their retention rates for teachers. Teachers are still leaving for a lot of those reasons we already talked about lack of support from administration, burnout, the workload is too high, you know, just student behavior, parent behavior. We talk about that a lot on here too. Um, so that was also shown in the research as well. But again, for every positive or for every negative story that I heard aligned with um the four-day school week, I heard positive stories too. Because there was a Missouri superintendent that said their teacher applications double when his district moved to a four-day week. Doubled. In Oklahoma, some parents reported relief for fewer school days. Um, and others said, hey, the relief that I feel for fewer school days, my kid doesn't have a, you know, a lot of anxiety, they're less stressed, but the childcare costs outweigh any of the benefits. And then there was a teacher in Texas that described the four day work week as a lifesaver. She was burnt out. And she admitted she still spends her day off, which for them was Friday, grading papers, but doing it from the comfort of her home. Made it not as bad. So you really have a myriad of input, feedback, comments from everybody involved schools, teachers, and families. So, you know, even for that teacher that's grading papers at home, she's off the clock. The work hasn't disappeared, it just shifted to a different day. But she was okay with it. I'd rather grade papers from home than be at school. Some people are like, well, if you're gonna give me a day off, then let it be a day off. Don't give me the day off and tell me I have to work. It kind of like negates the point of having the day off, right? So I think it's just all in the perspective of how those that are impacted from it kind of look at it. So if you are lucky enough, or maybe you consider it unlucky to work in a district that uses a four-day school week, let me know. If you're a parent who has a kid going to school in one of these districts, let me know as well. Because it really isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. You know, I hate to say it, but it really is all just an experiment. Like we're thinking this will retain teachers, this will boost applications, and then if we extend the school day, kids won't be missing out on instructional time and everything will be fine. But we don't really know. So if your child is part of the experiment, I would really love to hear from you because just like any experiments, the results depend on context. It depends on your life, your experiences, your perspective, whether you're the teacher, whether you're the parent, or whether you are the school leader. So is the four-day work week a solution, or would you consider it a setback? The truth is, I think you would agree with this. It could be both. It's relief for teachers, but not always for parents. It helps some students thrive, but then it leaves some others behind. So, parents, if your district is considering it, ask hard questions. What happens with childcare? Are y'all supplementing childcare? Have you worked something out with community partners to make sure kids have somewhere to go and they're just not out in the streets or stuck at home, glued to the tube, as we used to say, YouTube and you know, just watching television? Um, what about meals? Are you all gonna offer lunch and breakfast services on these days off? And the most important question if your kid has an IEP, what about special education services? How is this reflected in my kid's IEP that this is gonna be a day that's not available for him to get services? You know, some kids get services five days a week. That's what the IEP says. Are they gonna amend your child's IEP to reflect four days a week? Those are all great questions to ask if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, be honest about how a four-day school week would impact you. What would it like restore your energy or just shift your workload to being done at home versus at school? And does that work for you and in your lifestyle? You know, a lot of times teachers may work in a district that their kids don't go to school in. So what if your kids' district goes to school four days a week and you are in a district that works five days a week? What do you do with your kids then? Or vice versa. Maybe you work four days a week and your kids go to school five days a week. You know, what are you how are you gonna manage that? And for the school leaders, don't just chase the retention and the applicant, you know, component of this or the budget savings, because we talked about that as well. Schools are saving tons of money on food, transportation, utilities, all that. Really look closely at what other schools have found in their student outcomes because we want kids to learn, obviously, but also think about the equity part of it as well, because some families are not structured like others, and this could become a real burden for some and really leave kids out in the lurch that families don't have anywhere to take their kids for that fifth day because of financial reasons. So I hope that you share some feedback with me if you've experienced a four-day school week, or if you're like, hmm, that sounds like a really good idea. I need to pitch this to my principal so we can put together something and take it to school leaders. Or maybe you're like, absolutely not, I don't want any part of this. Just let me have my five-day week and leave me alone. Or parents for you, I would love more family time. That extra day is gonna give me that. Or heck no, do not send my kids home for an extra day. They already get enough days off from school. I know some parents out there are thinking that already. So whether you see it as a solution or a setback, one thing is really clear. It is reshaping the future of school in America. So if you've heard any hint of it, think about those questions that I gave you to ask. If you're a teacher, if you're a parent, if you're a school leader. And if it's something you're really interested in, you think about those questions to go ahead and preempt the feedback that you know you're gonna get from your school uh teachers and families. If you're the school leader who's pitching this idea forward, you need to come with a complete package to answer these really hard questions that you're gonna get from parents and from teachers too. So thanks for joining me for another Great Tuesday Talks. It's always a pleasure to just share all these educational thoughts, ideas, and topics with you all. Please hit that subscribe button, like, share. If you listen to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave a comment, leave a rating, and let me know. Give me some feedback. What are your thoughts about a four-day school week? Is it great? Not so great, or maybe it just depends. And with that, I will see you next week for another great episode. Until then, bye.

SPEAKER_00:

Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday Time. See ya.