Four-day school week gains popularity in the United States

“Are four-day school weeks a good or bad thing?’, I would caution that it is still too early to tell,” stated an economics professor who is part of Oregon State’s Four-Day School Week policy research team to The Journalist’s Resource.

     Throughout the United States, 4dsw have gotten more popular in the last two decades. Hundreds of schools especially in rural and western areas have adopted this schedule. Colorado’s districts are 70% 4dsw. In Oregon alone there are 137 schools across 80 districts that have the 4dsw. In the United States, approximately 900 school districts have the 4dsw. 

     The main attraction towards 4dsw is saving money, less student absences, and maintaining teachers. Maintaining teachers is the most important reason that schools throughout the U.S. are switching to the 4dsw. On the west coast, specifically districts in California and Oregon, teachers have walked out on strike. Four-day weeks could resolve issues like planning time for teachers. Teachers would have an extra day per week for planning time and that increasingly lessens the stress of maintaining consistency in lessons and the possibility of going on strike. The 4dsw is also favored by students having longer weekends full of resting and sleeping. They also have more time for extracurricular activities which leads to less student absences. 

“If we had a four-day week I’d be willing to do more homework if we had that much more time to do it.” said senior Lily Walker.

Although there are great benefits to 4dsw, elementary and middle school students have been affected negatively by the schedule, especially academically. COVID caused a drastic change in student performance with lower English, math, and science scores, and declined attendance. Now on top of that, with the 4dsw schedule, students don’t retain as much information as the ones with 5-day school weeks do. The growth of the former is not as rapid and substantial as the latter. 

Corbett High School has been on a 4dsw for 15 years. Students, knowing that they have Friday off, are motivated to finish off the week strong. A four-day week and three-day weekend is seemingly more balanced for students’ mental health and academics rather than a five-day week and a two-day weekend. To accommodate the 4dsw schedule, schools do have to add a respective amount of time each day. Lessening the amount of days is balanced by increasing the length of each day. 

“Are four-day school weeks a good or bad thing?’, I would caution that it is still too early to tell,” stated an economics professor who is part of Oregon State’s Four-Day School Week policy research team to The Journalist’s Resource. 

There are many dependent factors that determine if the good outweighs the bad and not every school’s statistics come out identically. As more schools adopt the 4dsw schedule, the controversy will live on for the next several years.