We almost moved to Wyoming once. I wish we had, but that is another story for another day. While researching several school districts in that region, we began to notice that at least a few districts in the Mountain West had adopted four day school weeks during the worst of winter. We met with realtors and school district reps about getting our kids enrolled. While doing that, we asked about the four day weeks. They loved them. Here is the kicker, their calendars are still pretty similar to ours with the exception that they don’t place their state assessments so early in May(which forces early school starts….). When COVID struck, I immediately approached some on our local BOE about utilizing four day weeks. That three day weekend (Friday to Sunday) would quite likely break the infection cycle. How do I know this? During flu season systems will often take a Friday off, and keep kids at home. Do that one or two times in close proximity, and the flu will return to manageable levels. Well, that got me to thinking about how a four day week might look during normal circumstances. I think it would be glorious.
Proposal. Firstly, never underestimate a central office’s ability to screw things up – never. Look no further than the Indian being painted over. So, while I propose this idea, I can already sense some educational bureaucrat thinking of a way for this to benefit their area -> and then screw this up. This proposal isn’t for central office. It is for building level school personnel and families. We don’t need disconnected people at Central Office working on this, disconnected meaning they haven’t taught in a couple of decades and only rub elbows with other educational bureaucrats after hours. My proposal would be a Monday-Thursday school week for both teachers and families during November through March. No, I don’t want teachers in buildings on Fridays unless they choose to do so freely, AND they are paid well, AND they are working with students who also have the choice to be at school that day. Fridays would be used for sporting events/practices, travel to sporting events, additional band practice, and tier 3 RTI to name a few.
Illness management. No, I am not a person who would do this for COVID – not my style. However, December – March is crazy bad for things like the throw-up bug, the flu, colds, and the general ick that seems to cycle and recycle during those months. During cold and flu season, the three day weekends will stop virus spread in its tracks. I have seen that first hand. It gives custodians an extra day to clean. It gives time for kids to get home, and away from other sick students. Everyone gets rested up. Attendance increases.
Saves on operating costs and allows for extra curricular scheduling. In Wyoming, the distances between school districts is vast. So, just getting to another sports venue might take 4-6 hours. Fridays are used for that type of travel. During winter in Wyoming, this also reduces bus travel during the worst of winter by 20%. Also, in Wyoming the winter is awful at times. Their four day calendars begin in December and last through March. The one less day of bus travel per weeks saves on fuel, driver costs, and lessens the cost of operating a school building(only four days per week instead of five). Need an extra band practice or athletic practice? This is your calendar.
Families can be families. I really am beginning to question whether schools need my kids five days a week. I think many of us see the indoctrination, even if it is subtle. I see schools wasting vast amounts of time on social emotional learning SEL (which can get really, really weird at times…yeah, we all know about it), and RTI time (children not in RTI often just sit for 20-30minutes per day). By my estimate, we are wasting up to 30-45 minutes per day which is NOT dedicated to academic instruction. Want to take a three day weekend somewhere as a family? This system is designed for that. Are things crazy with schedules at work and school? This is designed to let some pressure off.
School principals in the Mountain West like it. Most school principals are doing teacher evaluations, handling behavior, returning parent phone calls, sitting in teacher meetings, and so much more during a school day. On Fridays, the building is empty or minimally staffed. They can go into work, and get all of those things accomplished with they would do after a normal student school day.
These Fridays are NOT used for professional development days as best I can tell. I it definitely NOT a day where we need to expect teachers to work remotely. I can 100% guarantee somebody wants to take off Wednesday or Monday instead of Friday. Nope, that isn’t how this idea works. I have done something similar (1/2 days on Wednesdays), and it just doesn’t work in many situations. I can also hear some bureaucrat thinking about taking some of those precious summer break days, and then using them to supply those extra Fridays during winter. In other words, it is an excuse to go year round. NO! Hear me on this…most school systems in this area already go enough extra time during the day that it banks those extra days. We ALREADY do this in Kingsport!!!! We are banking 12+ days per school year. I bet many of you didn’t realize that we go 30 mins extra per day in order to bank snow days that we rarely use. In fact, we are using those for at least one professional development day per nine weeks. Give us back those professional development days, and we can do this right now! Twelve banked days would give us three months worth of four day weeks.
These four day weekend are meant to save systems money, provide families with more time, create an environment to attract prospective teachers(hey, our system has four day weeks…why work five in another district?), and just in general allow for people to enjoy life instead of being stuck inside a box all day. Take some time and think about it. This blog is about innovation, and this would certainly be innovative.
I will follow-up on this idea with more specific information.
