Another off topic thread.

[DinwiddieProud]

I just read an interesting article about rural school systems going to a four day week.

It looks like a trend beginning to take hold to me. I think they said over 100 school districts in Idaho have adopted this system.

It has promise, in the right situations. As stated in the article, many cost are fixed, i.e. teacher's salaries, but there are some opportunities for savings.

Google the topic and add your comments.

 

[SpartanOfYore]

I just read an interesting article about rural school systems going to a four day week.

It looks like a trend beginning to take hold to me. I think they said over 100 school districts in Idaho have adopted this system.

It has promise, in the right situations. As stated in the article, many cost are fixed, i.e. teacher's salaries, but there are some opportunities for savings.

Google the topic and add your comments.

Thanks for offering yet more thought-provoking material - you old provocateur, you. I just read two articles on the subject, one from the Atlantic, and the other from the Brookings Institution. Solely based on those two articles, the four-day school week strikes me as a bad idea. It's real late, and I'm powerful tired, so I'll just bullet-point my reasons.

• The theory that the plan would result in savings has already been disproven.
• If a district is bound and determined to try to force savings, that means reduced rates for hourly employees who can ill afford such a reduction, and reduction of food for school lunches, and less money allocated for heating. Things of that nature.
  
• I think four days of longer hours is bound to lead to a precipitous drop in efficiency in the last hours of the day, especially in the younger kids. Possibly for the teachers, as well.
• The primary, if not only reason people like it is because it's more convenient for the adults, in some ways - more time for parents to take kids to doctors and dentists, and run errands; and, more free time for teachers, who apparently are also really digging five days' pay for four days' work.

So, that's the summary of why, based on my not-so-extensive reading, the four-day school week seems like a bad idea to me. I would not be at all pleased if I had a child who was subject to such a scheme.