Anybody have a 4-day school week?

[MouseLover]

Our district is considering changing to this option next year.

If your district does this, how many days of school are there each year? What are your school hours?

Pros/Cons/Comments???

Thanks!

 

[DVCJones]

Subscribing...

I would be interested in hearing more about this idea.

We(teachers) were just talking about this very idea during lunch.

With fuel cost cutting into the budget of everyone, we were half joking of the possibilities of this happening.

 

[nessz79]

Another teacher subscribing...

 

[nyyankeegirl]

Never heard of it. I would suspect that the days would be too long for the younger children. They would probably have to add on another 1-2 hrs. each day. I'm interested in hearing what others have to say.....

 

[DawnM]

I will go back to work teaching if this is an option! I think it would be hard for parents who work 5 days a week though, they would have to find something for the kids to do the 5th day.

Dawn

 

[matthew&haleysmom]

I am sure that the school system I work for would never consider this. But if it ever went for a vote, I would vote for a 4 day school week.

I have been reading that more and more rural areas have been going to a 4 day school week to cut costs. However, I have not really seen anything about the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness for the students.

 

[barkley]

i don't know if our schedual is a good comparison because it's very non traditional but at least it might answer if your proposed schedual could be accomplished without extending the school day.

my kids attend a private school that meets or exceeds the number of hours required in our state (in all the states they operate in across the u.s. which is i believe all states). our schedual runs 4 1/2 days per week with one additional 1/2 day on one sunday per month. the twist in this is that they also get one week per month where they only attend 2 1/2 days-and are off from noon on a wednesday, all day thursday and friday. therefore the half days they attend (in an average month 3 fridays, 1 sunday) are only for the purpose of covering those 2 1/2 days off. they also attend all of the legal holidays (labor day, vets day, mlk, presidents, memorial) BUT they get longer vacations off than the public schools (we had 3 weeks off last christmas and 1 1/2 days more for thanksgiving).

our school schedual is 8-3, with half days going from 8-12. the kids get just shy of a full hour per day off for lunch. they begin attending the last monday in august and end on the first friday in june.

as for the pros and cons-i'll address your proposed schedual instead of our existing. as a parent of 2 kids, when i was working unless i could have arranged an alternate work schedual with my employer so i was off one day per week it would have been very difficult and costly to arrange childcare (their former school had no days off per month but got off at noon on fridays-there were parents that paid a FORTUNE to arrange child care that could pick up at noon and keep the kids that one day per week). the good thing about having one day off per week is being able to schedual travel without missing school, and the trade off that the school tends to use that off day for all of the teacher in-services (so we did'nt have 5 or more odd days throughout the school year that we had to arrange care for).

it will be interesting to see what hours people post that their kids go to school-i've seen some threads about that on the diz and i've been amazed at what i consider to be incredibly short (academic wise) scheduals. i've seen parents post that their kids don't start the day until close to 9 a.m. with a release time of 2:30. how anyone can teach a full curriculum with less than 5 hours of instructional time per day is beyond me.

 

[ajk912]

We don't have it, and I don't think I would mind it too much because between school and homework we probably spend 10 hours on school a day, anyway. Now, if you have a 9 hour school day PLUS 2 hours a night of homework, that could be really, really bad.

 

[daisyduck123]

Another teacher subscribing.....

I would love this. To make up the extra 6 hours & 15 minutes we would lose from that fifth day, the school day would only have to be lengthened by about 1.5 hours.

 

[3disAddicts]

Spoke to my sons' teacher about this 2 weeks ago. Our county is seriously considering this. The school day will be an hour longer. Teachers will still work on Fridays, though. There are many mixed emotions on this. With this schedule, she says she will not get home until 7:00 each evening. Parents are really protesting it, since they will have to arrange daycare for Fridays.

 

[MouseLover]

I believe we would have to add 1 1/2 hours of instruction time to the 4 days. I teach first grade, and that last hour is already difficult enough to keep their attention. If we added this much time, we would almost have to an additional recess (we only have one now). The recess time would be excluded from instructional time.

I have mixed feelings on the issue. I would save me some gas, as long as we had 4 days and not 4 1/2.

Our school is considering offering options on the 5th day for those who need them.

My daughter is middle-school age, and she is tired at the end of the day already. On the bright side, though, we would only have 4 nights of homework per week!

 

[carj]

I think that while it would be wonderful to have the extra day off, there are a lot of problems.

The biggest thing that I see is that my children are already exhausted from being at school from 7:45-3:30, if we extend that day until 5:00, would I be forced to push their bedtimes up to give them the rest that they need to function all day?

What about homework? Right now my first grader has about 30 minutes of homework and reading each night. If we got out at 5:00, home by 5:30, dinner by 6:00, homework at 6:30, bath at 7:00, that gives him exactly 1 hour, if that all runs perfectly to relax. In my opinion that is too much for a 7 year old kid! Kids need time every day to play and just be kids. They can't "bank" that time on Fridays and use it up during the week. Kids need to be in school yes, but they also need to be ready to learn while they are there.

What about extracurricular activities like football, band etc...who compete/perform? Would you really want to have a kid practicing another hour a day in addition to their already over-filled day? What about games? If your district is competing against other districts, you would have to play on an agreed schedule. Around here, that means Friday nights.

In my opinion, and it is only an opinion, the decision to go to a 4 day week and add time to each day is not going to improve education and the potential cost savings are not worth the actual costs.

As a teacher, I would LOVE to have an extra day off per week but it just isn't what it best for kids, at least if they are going to add to each day.

 

[barkley]

I believe we would have to add 1 1/2 hours of instruction time to the 4 days. I teach first grade, and that last hour is already difficult enough to keep their attention. If we added this much time, we would almost have to an additional recess (we only have one now). The recess time would be excluded from instructional time.

I have mixed feelings on the issue. I would save me some gas, as long as we had 4 days and not 4 1/2.

Our school is considering offering options on the 5th day for those who need them.

My daughter is middle-school age, and she is tired at the end of the day already. On the bright side, though, we would only have 4 nights of homework per week!

so what is your current school schedual (hours, instructional hours, days off in a year)-and what does your state require?

just curious because as i posted above we seem to be able to currently do a 4 day schedual (trading off those half fridays for extra days off per month) but it still seems like my kids go to school a shorter day than others.

 

[dementia412]