I meant to raise this idea for discussion last week — Jim Rex’s idea that school districts be allowed (not required) to have four-day school weeks if that’s how they want to save some money in light of state budget cuts.
Here’s a memo that I got last week from Jim Foster (who works for Rex) on the subject:
TO: News media
Dr. Rex made a variety of recommendations yesterday as possible cost-saving measures for South Carolina’s public schools. The idea generating the biggest reaction is going to a four-day school week, so here’s some additional information on that.
Dr. Rex is not, as some headlines said this morning, "urging the state to adopt a four-day school week." What he is doing is asking the General Assembly to modify the current 180-day minimum requirement for school calendars so that local communities would have the option of going to a four-day school week if that’s what they want to do. That would mean lengthening four school days so that you would end up with what used to be a week’s worth of instruction, but delivered in just four days.
For parents who have young kids in day care, the idea of a four-day week is a legitimate cause for concern. What you will probably hear is, "What am I supposed to do with my kid on a weekday when there’s no school?"
Several things to consider:
1.) The current school day means that many parents must pay for after-school care every day. Lengthening four days a week would mean lower day care bills (and more convenient pick-ups) on those four days.
2.) School districts that choose a four-day week could keep one or more schools open on the fifth day to help working parents. Staffing could be greatly reduced. Homework assistance could be provided, recreation and athletics, etc.
3.) Having an "extra day" during the week could spur innovation and create new types of student-centered services. For example, that day could be devoted to tutoring children who have particular academic needs.
Viewed from a broader perspective, four-day weeks are not a new thing. Sixteen states currently have at least some schools on that kind of calendar. And in some states, it appears to be taking hold in a more permanent way. In Colorado, for example, 67 of the state’s 178 districts operate on a four-day week. In New Mexico, 18 districts operate on a four-day week.
There are a variety of possible pros and cons, and each school district would have to examine those to determine if a four-day schedule is for them.
One question asked yesterday is what the financial savings might be in terms of school bus transportation. Statewide, South Carolina’s school bus system costs $300,000 each day for fuel alone. There are additional daily costs for state maintenance facilities, driver salaries, etc.
Again, Dr. Rex is not urging the state’s 85 districts to adopt a four-day schedule. He is, however, asking the General Assembly to make the statutory changes necessary for local districts to consider it as an option.
What do I think of it? Well, I’m weird, and on things like this I tend to go more than I should by my own experience as a schoolboy, which is one of the reasons WHY I’m weird. Here’s my own extreme case: In the 4th grade, I got caught between the northern hemisphere school year and the southern hemisphere year when we moved to Ecuador in November. I had spent a few weeks in school in Bennettsville, and then a few in Kensington, Md., but I arrived in Ecuador just before the school year ended, which meant that when it started back in April, I would probably have to start the 4th grade over and therefore be a year behind when we came back to the States.
So my parents got me a tutor, who did the 4th grade with me in one-hour sessions three times a week over eight weeks (and lots of homework). So I essentially did the 4th grade with 24 hours of instruction — and I didn’t miss anything.
And no, a teacher with 25 kids in the room can’t devote that kind of attention, but the experience made me think the 180-day year is less than sacrosanct.
You will be relieved to know that when I raise such points as this, my colleagues ignore me and go with expert opinion, and expert opinion maintains that kids need the time on task with a teacher. Fine. But in Sunday’s editorial, we said that while we see potential problems with Rex’s idea, at least he’s thinking in the right direction — we’re going to have to be flexible about how we do a lot of things in this fiscal crisis.
What do you think?
Related Posts
Solutions that don’t impact working parents who would have to come up with Friday day care solutions:
– Cancel the new PASS test. No impact on students and parents. Positive impact on teachers and principals who can get back to teaching. Big impact on educrats who are paid to process a whole lot of data and do nothing with it.
– Combine school districts. One per county. Bingo! Millions of dollars saved in duplicated administrative positions.
– Cancel all monetary awards for Blue Ribbon, Red Carpet, Palmetto Choice, etc.
schools. If a school feels like they need a trophy, send every school one.
– Cut technology budget to the bone at the elementary school level; cut it in half at the middle school level; and cut it by 1/4 at the high school level. Every school has a library full of books. There is zero evidence that all the money spent on technology has made any difference in the education experience for kids. All it has done is opened the door to rampant cheating, crappy powerpoint presentations, poor handwriting and spelling, and an inability to communicate.
There you go. Millions saved… give the teachers a bonus check at the end of the school year.
Good ideas, Doug. But you know the bonus check idea won’t float. We are in the public view public “servants.” (Um-um, I love that phrase!)
All of this new crazy stuff (as opposed to the OLD crazy stuff)was exacerbated by that idiotic report card, right? If these principals (and by virtue of the trickle down, teachers)weren’t so afraid of bad numbers better decisions would be made.
Or at least that’s the fairy tale I tell myself.
Anybody ever think of taking the fryer grease from all of those school kithens and using it for fuel for the diesel buses?
A few thousand dollar conversion kit per bus would turn any diesel bus into a “greasel” bus. Sure, you pay for the kit up front, but you make your money back on day #1 those buses don’t burn petroleum based fuel.
Plus local restaurants could donate their old grease that they have to pay to dispose of to their local school and get a tax right-off.
No cost fuel for the schools.
Problem solved. Is it really that hard people??
Drastically lower fuel costs, reuse of school district resources while still providing the kids what they need.
Doug –
I’ve got two quibbles with your list.
1. Whether a school uses a state-developed test like PASS / PACT or purchases an off-the-shelf standardized test that aligns well with curriculum standards, the public in general and parents in particular need to know how well the school is doing. I agree that PACT was disruptive and not cost-effective (in terms of instructional time lost and the lag between testing and getting results), but even teachers and administrators need benchmarks to assess their performance, and the folks footing the bills surely do.
2. I agree that savings / efficiencies would be realized by combining school districts, organizing them by county, but then I have to look at the gulf between Richland County’s two districts. While Richland District One (RDO) has some good schools and excellent programs in place, race continues to play a huge role in the district’s politics, starting with the school board and radiating outward, and it’s been going on for years; ask Ted Wachter. Allen J. Coles replaced Epps as superintendent, but served only his three years because he, in the words of Rep. Leon Howard, “catered to white folks,” the minority in RDO. So much for pushing middle-class values, specifically notions of achievement.
Here’s the difference between the two districts. When an opening occurs, whether for superintendent, administrator, teacher, or whatever, Richland Two looks for the best suited, most able candidates it can afford. Richland One looks first and — often only — for the best suited, most able black candidates it can afford. In RDO, politics, not educational excellence, comes firt.
As for the 180 days rule, I’ve no objection to changing that as long as 150 – 160 hours of instruction per subject per school year is mandated.
Mike,
After ten years of PACT, can you point to any evidence of how the data was used to assess teacher performance or to identify steps to improve failing schools?
Which schools in Richland 2 are the best? Which are the worst? The data would tell us that wouldn’t it?
The 2007-2008 scores showed somewhere between 20 and 30% of 8th grade students scored Below Basic on English or Math. How many of those students do you guess were held back for remedial work? How many of those 20-30% do you expect will be dropping out of high school?
You want an simple analysis of how schools are doing? Ask a realtor. They don’t need PACT scores. They listen to what the locals say. When I moved to SC in 1990, our realtor said “If you have kids, you want Richland 2 or Lexington 5”. That was well before PACT. All PACT did was confirm what everyone already knew – poorer kids do worse than middle class kids.
I trust teachers and principals to know what is best for students, not tests.
Four very long days per week is probably too much to ask of children.
Where I live, thanks to lengthy school bus routes, kids already have to get up at 6 a.m. to go to school, and some don’t get home until 6 p.m. or after.
So now they won’t get home until 9 o’clock at night?
I thought we outlawed slavery.
First the four day week will never pass. Just tell all the football & athletic teams that they can’t practice or warm up on Fridays due to the facilities being closed and that debate wil end real quick.
Second, school is not slavery. The reason the US has fallen so far behind the rest of the world is that kids in other countries do got to school sometimes 6 ot 7 days a week and school days that consist of 10 to 12 hours per day. Combine that with the antiquated US practice of only going to school 9 months of the year and not all 12 and its not hard to see why the best US schools are still so far behind.
The next great discovery that will lead to an economic boom will come in either energy sciences or technology. Both of those have to be taught smartly and at an early age in order for the US to ride the crest of the finincial boom and not just get washed away in its wake.
It boils down to hard choices. If the school districts can’t pay the bills, then its time to stop extra spending like athletics and other EXTRA-curricular activities. Kids go to school to be educated first and for most and for entertainment. Sure, athletics can teach life lesssons, but if you want your kid to learn those, sign them up at the local youth center as schools just can’t afford them anymore.
Many schools in the rust-belts have already made those hard decisions. It’s just South Carolina’s turn.
A parent of one of my students asked me about the 4-day week and if I thought it would pass. I told her I didn’t think so because unless the legislature lifted the law that says how much we have to attend school it would be very unwieldy.
We already go to 3:15. If we had to add 7 1/2 more hours to 4 days, that would put us at school until 5:30 or so. In classes. With very tired students who would have to give up after-school jobs and sports. Someone has already pointed out the situation with buses that already run until 6:00 or 6:30.
Yes, giving up sports is a lifestyle choice, but giving up a job could be more serious for a family. And yes, we’d be off one day more, but the daycare issue comes up for younger children.
Contract-wise, teachers would have fulfilled their hour requirements for the week at the end of the 4th day. I don’t know of many who would be willing to do an extra day a week to babysit, which is basically what it would be.
WTF, if the legislature allowed a 4-day work week or a five-day work week, schools could probably do a little of both to suit athletics.
Besides, why couldn’t the four-day work week be Tuesday-Friday with Saturday, Sunday and Monday off? That would accommodate Friday sports.
Some student can’t pass in 5 days; how many more will fail in a 4 day school week.
Why not cut sports and spend the money on better schools and making education a prior.
The idea of giving school districts flexibility to have a longer school day and shorter school year is great, but let’s make it family friendly and even more cost effective by giving districts the option of scheduling the required number of instructional hours between 170 and 180 school days. The school day would only be about 15 minutes longer, yet a 10 day reduction would generate huge cost savings. Especially if the days were cut from August, when cooling costs are the greatest.
Children with educational delays and learning disabilities may be 2 to 3 years behind children their own age. They qualify for extra help from special education services because of this. However, these kids are forced to take the state test (PACT now PASS) on their age level. If they were capable of taking this and passing it, they would never have qualified for special education in the first place. This would be the same thing as forcing a first grade student to take and pass the third grade level PACT test. Make sense?
Schools are providing good education to Children ,
Christena
Save OVER 50% for 3 months,Save $21/mo for an Entire Year!* on your Favorite Channels