Four-Day School Week Divides Parents

An Indiana school district’s plans to move one school to a four-day week has divided parents on social media.

The Lafayette School Corporation announced last week that its board of trustees had approved the shorter school week for Vinton Elementary beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.

“We are pleased to offer learning options that meet all students’ and families needs,” the corporation said in a statement on Facebook.

The school will join thousands of others that have switched to four-day school weeks. Districts that have adopted them in recent years have cited cost savings and the difficulty in recruiting teachers. For parents, the extra day off school may mean having to arrange additional child care.

The change means Vinton Elementary will run from 8 a.m. until 3:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday. School will be in session for 151 days, with more than 64,000 minutes of instruction—10,000 minutes above Indiana’s minimum requirement, Les Huddle, the superintendent of LSC, told Newsweek.

Huddle said families at Vinton Elementary had the opportunity for the past year to ask questions and respond to surveys regarding the four-day week.

“Most of the concerns have been related to child care on the Fridays when there will be no attendance for students,” he said. “We have that worked out with one of our community partners, our local YNCA, to provide child care for those families who need it from 7 a.m to 6 p.m.”

The Lafayette School Corporation’s announcement was met with mixed responses from parents.

“Happy about this! Kids don’t need to be expected to sit five days a week for 8+ hours. I don’t even do that for work. I set my own schedule which accommodates my child’s schedule. It’s that simple,” one person wrote on Facebook.

Another wrote: “I think it’s great for parents to have choices… It might be a difficult transition to middle school for some kids when they have to go 5 days a week and aren’t used to it though.”

But others questioned the impact the four-day week would have on working parents and on students who count on school for meals.

“What about those students who depend on a breakfast and lunch at school?” one person asked.

“Won’t this cause issues for parents of young children who work [Monday to Friday]?” another wrote.

Huddle said: “We knew with a decision like this there would be some push back and negative comments. Most have come from individuals who do not have students at Vinton or haven’t taken the time to become fully educated on the concept.

“When we have supportive parents at Vinton Elementary and a staff and Board of Trustees supporting the concept, we feel we can move forward and create a supporting and exciting environment of students.”

Almost 2,100 schools in nearly 900 districts across 25 states have four-day school weeks, an increase of almost 850 percent since 1999, Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University who studies the impact of four-day weeks, told Newsweek in February.

“Historically, there have been three main reasons cited for four-day school week use,” Thompson said. “The first is around schools switching for issues related to rural schooling, including student absences due to extracurricular activities and appointments. The second is around cost savings, which was a primary reason for schools switching to this model around the Great Recession. Currently, the motivation is solely that of teacher retention and recruitment, with the four-day school week being used as a non-monetary benefit schools can offer teachers.”

Some also worry about the effect of four-day weeks on students whose learning was disrupted during to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research by the Rand Corp., which analyzed data from 36 districts in five states—Idaho, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota—found that while student achievement improved in districts with four-day school weeks, it did so more slowly than if the same schools had maintained a five-day week.