Highland adopts 4-day school week. Others may follow

RIVERSIDE — Highland students will attend class only four days a week next school year, after a 6-1 vote in favor of the change at a school board meeting Feb. 12.

Superintendent Ken Crawford has spent the last few months advocating for the move, which will give students Fridays off, but lengthen other school days by about 45 minutes, and get rid of early-outs. He said doing so would improve the district’s appeal to prospective hires and thus ensure the staff can adequately educate students in its rural schools.

“Having a qualified, experienced professional in that classroom is what’s best for students, and that’s what we’re driving this for,” he said. “It’s not about a one-year gimmick, it’s about what we can do to sustain this district at the highest possible level.”

Crawford, who is also the superintendent at WACO schools, said that district’s roughly 10-year experiment in 4-day weeks had eased hiring difficulties as prospective teachers favored the extra day off, with few observed downsides for the kids enrolled there after a brief transition period.

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Some are skeptical of the switch

School board member Monica Jepson was the lone vote opposing the schedule change. She said she believed the reduced number of classroom days would worsen students’ education. Hard evidence on the matter is limited and often inconclusive.

A 2023 study in Oregon from Early Child Research Quarterly on the matter found “minimal and non-significant differences” in student achievement among pupils who attended 4-day versus 5-day school weeks from kindergarten through third grade, but noted that among those who scored highest on math and language arts assessments in preschool, 4-day students scored slightly worse than their equally high-performing peers following 5-day weeks. The study found no such discrepancy for students who performed at or below average in preschool.

Another 2021 Study from the RAND Corporation found that “student achievement did not grow as fast” in 4-day school week districts as in comparable 5-day ones, based on national assessment scores.

“I just don’t see the benefit for students,” Jepson said. “When I came onto the board, that was my main thing: being able to be a voice for students at the school. And I just did not see the data that showed major benefits for the students.”

Jepson said she was also worried about the costs of day care for families who rely on the school for child supervision during parents’ 5-day work weeks.

Crawford said the district was working out details to ensure coverage for the extra day off at Highland’s before and after school program. While that would come with a cost for families who sign up, he said specific numbers were still unresolved and would depend on the community’s interest in using the program on Fridays.

The superintendent added that the district had also worked to ensure its Back Pack Program — which provides meals to students through HACAP on days without class — was equipped to handle any food insecurity concerns for families who would otherwise rely on the school for breakfast and lunch.

“We feel like we’ve handled and gotten a couple really good ideas in place for both day care and food security, and now we can see if there’s something more creative out there for us to do as well,” Crawford said.

Other districts entering the fray

Highland isn’t alone in the switch to a 4-day school week. Winfield-Mt. Union announced the same change of its schedule in January, and New London officials say they’re considering it as well. In Jefferson County, similar discussions have been reported at Pekin schools this year, while Cardinal launched its model for a 4-day week this school year, taking Mondays off instead of Fridays.

Washington is the latest and largest area school to join the discussion. At a school board meeting Wednesday night, decision-makers for the bigger district — Washington has a certified enrollment of 1,626, around three times that of other above-listed schools — instructed Superintendent Willie Stone to start surveying staff, students and families about the possibility of a shorter week with longer days.

Members of the board said they were interested in the proposal’s implications for bussing costs, student morale, chronic absenteeism and staff availability to conduct student behavior evaluations.

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“I definitely think we want to survey the community,” Board Member Mike Liska said. “Hearing from staff and also from the community that have kids in the district will be very key.”

The Iowa Department of Education says there’s currently a shortage of teachers for every world language, physical education, social studies, art, music, language arts, agriculture, grade 5-12 math and science, school librarians, and several others.

The long-standing issue has plagued lower-budget rural schools in the area. Washington schools have resorted to a remotely taught Spanish class and $5,000 bonus pay offers to adapt. Teacher retention was cited as a priority by several area school board candidates in the last few election cycles.

Most districts pursuing the 4-day week say they hope to attract more job applicants, since their talent pools consist largely of recently graduated teachers with less experience and more affordable salaries. Those applicants, mostly of a younger generation, say they value the extra day off even if it means longer hours on workdays.

There is some concern that schools will lose the hiring edge of a 4-day week if too many hop on the bandwagon.

Back at Highland, Crawford said he expected his district to have that advantage this spring, but that future competition for teachers could boil down to differences in 4-day week dynamics, like which day is taken off, or what work is expected from staff on non-class days.

“We were one of the first, and we were pushing the envelope long before other people … so I feel like we’re still well ahead of the game,” he said. “A year from now, I think it would provide for very interesting conversation of how each day looks. Some people may not go to a Friday, they may do a Monday, I think that’s a very different competitive conversation. (It) would provide a new competitive target for us to work on.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com