Cardinal school board votes for four-day week

ELDON — The Cardinal Community School Board voted 4-0 Monday night to move to a four-day school week beginning this fall.

The board did not decide which day of the week would not have class, either Monday or Friday. Board members voting in favor of the motion were Tom Drish, Tim Albert, Andy Noe and Trevor Brown. Mike Kayser was absent.

Drish said the main reason he voted for the change was to help retain teachers. After attending meetings of the Iowa School Board Association, he’s learned that teacher retention is a problem all districts are facing, not just rural ones.

“Schools need to get creative to keep their teachers,” he said. “One thing we learned after COVID is that people value their time off. With us being a smaller school, we can’t compete as much on salaries, but that extra time off means something to people.”

Instead of having class on either Monday or Friday, the district would hold professional development days for teachers every other week. To make up for holding class on fewer days, the school day would be longer. The school day for elementary students would last from 8 a.m. to 3:40 p.m., and for middle and high school students would last from 8 a.m. to 3:47 p.m. That’s 20-25 minutes longer than it is now.

This schedule, counting the hours of parent-teacher conferences, would put Cardinal 30 hours over the number of instruction hours the state requires, which is 1,080 per year. Drish said the full calendar has been not approved, but the board believes it can start school around Aug. 23 and finish before June 1.

The district would still have some weeks with five days of class, three to four weeks in September and October.

Drish said the idea of moving to a four-day week was overwhelmingly popular with staff. In a survey the district sent out, 95 percent of staff favored the move. He said there are still things that need to be ironed out, such as day care needs on the day class is not in session.

“We’re looking at every avenue, and we’re going to send out surveys to parents on their day care needs,” he said.

On its website, the school district explained how that no-school day will be used.

“Principals, instructional coaches and teacher leaders will schedule how they want staff to use that time, using our professional development goals as a guide,” the school district stated on its website. “Four-day work weeks give organizations a competitive edge when recruiting and retaining staff.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com