FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
As of right now, we are unsure of what the open day should be. Some school districts like Mondays because students want to be in school on Fridays for activities, and because many holidays naturally fall on Mondays. Some schools like Fridays because it seems that more of their parents have days off on Fridays, and it also makes transportation easier for middle school activities and athletics which often happen on Mondays. Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release this information. Currently, we do know that our absenteeism rate is highest for both students and staff on Fridays.
Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release this information.
This will extend the school day by approximately 15 minutes. See the 4-Day School Calendar page for details.
Is a longer day realistic for student focus?
The longer school day increases the amount of time spent on interventions for both students who are struggling and for students who need a bigger academic push. This one-on-one or small group time allows for greater student focus. As a staff, we work to incorporate movement breaks throughout the school day, in addition to recess, and we will need to continue to build on those.
See the 4-Day School Calendar for example calendars
Students are required, by law to attend 1080 hours. This calendar gives them 1082.
Three snow days are built in.
There are still some full five day weeks, especially at the beginning of the year and around major holidays.
The school day will run from 8 AM to 3:45 PM.
Professional development will happen on the day off, and early outs on Wednesdays, as we know them, will end. We surveyed some teachers on a sample survey and those teachers feel the change in PD will be an advantage because they will have an additional two hours a month (10 hours versus 8 hours). This would allow teachers to have more time to collaborate, plan, and learn.
While this is a fairly new concept to most Iowa schools, Missouri has over half of their schools in 4-day school weeks. Research was done on 6 Missouri schools (Montgomery County, Aurora, Reeds Spring, Clever, North Callaway County, and Forsyth) on the adoption of the four day school week. They were asked to answer the following questions: What were the major reasons that your district moved to the four-day week? What impact/trends have you seen on your test scores over time? Are they better, worse, or no different than when you used a 5-day schedule? What differences/trends have you noticed in attendance and behavior issues? How about your school culture? Our community has a strong concern about childcare and access to meals on the day off. How has your school/district dealt with this concern?
"The board was looking for options to save money and recruit/retain teachers."
"I believe we save roughly $200,000 a year without operating on that additional day" (from a district of 1,115--as New London is not attempting this for cost savings, we cannot say that this will be a benefit for us).
"3 questions driving the planning 1) How do we support teachers as they deal with increasing challenges? 2) How can we provide more professional development & collaborative time for teachers? 3) How can we recruit and retain teachers?"
"Academically, we have stayed the course. The data reflects that [there] really hasn't been any type of gain or loss since moving to the 4-day week"
"We still have students with chronic attendance issues but no more than what we had when I worked in a five day district week. Our discipline is not much different than that of a 5 day a week school. Going 4 days could allow for tutoring or detention to occur on [the day off].
"Behaviors are 'better'--we've really focused on engagement in classrooms. We did this because we needed to learn ways to maximize instructional time; use the time differently. This has also had a positive impact on behaviors. Both staff and student morale have improved. It would NOT be popular to take away the 4-day plan"
"Overall attendance rates are good. Parents say they really like having the day to take care of appointments."
"We provide food packs for the weekend to those families that request them. The list changes throughout the year as we see students who are struggling. We just surveyed the HS student body and only 1 student stated that they had worries about food over the weekend. The student was added to the list to receive food packs. Our community has several churches that do food pantries and there is a community food box that anyone can come take from what they need."
WATCH FOR UPCOMING INFORMATION FROM IOWA SCHOOLS: WACO AND CARDINAL.
As the school day is only fifteen minutes longer, the effect of this on the school day is minimal; the biggest effect comes from students potentially needing transportation to activities and events on Mondays or Fridays.
All make-up hours and days would happen on the scheduled off day (not on teacher PD days). Days will be marked on the calendar ahead of time.
In the districts where this has been studied recently, there is minimal effect on student achievement. See our research page for more details. Pay special attention to the Rand study which shows that many students in 4-day school weeks still grow, but not always at the rate of those in 5-day school weeks. This new calendar does provide more time for PD for teachers, which will allow them to plan for increased engagement, intervention, and priority information (need-to-know I cans in NLCSD teacher language). We will also offer "office hours" on days off where students could come in and get extra help on their days off.
WACO, another school in Southeast Iowa that has been doing the four day school week for over a decade had this to say, "I can tell you that we are a “High Performing” school this year (7-12) with a 42% Free and Reduced, and 14% IEP population. We were .04 points away from High Performing last year. We tell students everything (seriously, we share everything) and push them to grow...We do well because we hire and retain great teachers. We create a place where they are valued and give them professional freedom to meet the needs of any and every student. Our scores have very little to do with the week and everything to do with the people in our building..."
Would you have better staff and student attendance and motivation?
Six school districts in Missouri (where this has been standard for a while--we are compiling Iowa data right now) have reported better attendance and motivation. Many of the parents are appreciative of having a day during the week in which to schedule appointments. Behavior issues have also decreased. Climate surveys have also found better results; however, some of these immediate benefits do begin to recede as the four day school week became the new normal. WACO's attendance has gone from 88% to 96% because they focus on making their time count. New London's current attendance is 92%.
How does this affect rural students getting off the bus/transportation?
This will not affect the times that students get on the bus; however, they will be getting off of the buses approximately fifteen minutes later.
How does this affect local businesses/ economy (Jet Stop lunches/daycares, etc.)?
We will report on this once the businesses have completed their surveys.
How does this affect hourly employees and pay?
Many employees on the four day school week would still be able to work comparable hours because of the expanded daily schedule.
How is this a benefit or detriment for students and staff?
Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release this information.
Would this make life harder or easier for parents?
Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release this information.
When do students catch up on missed assignments?
Students will be able to catch up on missed work/resources during intervention time with teachers and potentially on days off. We will also offer "office hours" on days off where students could come in and get extra help on their days off.
How would this affect the at-risk population?
This question requires answers on multiple levels. The longer school day increases the amount of time spent on interventions for both students who are struggling and students who need a bigger academic push.
We will also offer "office hours" on days off where students could come in and get extra help on their days off.
For students at risk for food insecurity, we will work with our school pantry to meet the needs of their families.
We will release more information on this as we acquire more surveys and interviews.
How would this affect the family budget?
Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release this information.
What impact would this have on student mental health?
It would give the students the availability to rest another day and recuperate. This could also increase student drive considering they’d have another day to work on assignments.
Once our families, students, and staff are surveyed, we will release more information.
What impact is there on the school’s budget?
Research shows that districts can save 2% of their budget. In New London, however, this is not a consideration in making this decision. We are looking at the educational impact on our students. One school district in Missouri reports saving $200,000 a year, but their size was larger than New London's (1115 versus our current enrollment on PowerSchool, which is 603). Also, with fewer teacher absences, there will be less need for substitute teachers, which are already difficult to fill.
What is the impact on retention? Are there other ways to retain quality teachers?
The promise of a four-day school week is often attractive to teachers. _________ percent of our teachers and parents feel that a four-day school would attract and retain teachers in and to our district. (We will report the statistics after the surveys). _______percent feel it would not.
If our teacher retention scores are fairly high already, why would we consider this?
New London's data over the past six years shows a 93% certified staff retention rate. Our retention rate isn't as concerning as our difficulties in recruiting to our small, rural school. We do everything we can to help us stand out, and this might help too. The NLCSD has been really lucky so far to not have positions open throughout the school year. Many schools around Southeast Iowa have students in Zoom sessions to get their course requirements met, and NLCSD hasn't had to do that, in part because its retention is pretty good. Hiring used to be done through an online system called Teach Iowa that allowed us to see all of the teachers who might be interested in applying for any given position in Iowa. In the past, if there haven't been applicants for a position, NLCSD administrators have just started cold calling, which a lot of schools may not do. Because the system has changed, there is no more option for doing that. Fifteen to twenty years ago, the district used to get 100 applications for elementary positions; now it is lucky to get ten to fifteen, and often only a handful are ones who even want interviews. For a position in the MS/HS like language arts, there might be three applicants, and we are lucky to be able to interview one or two before another district has snapped them up. For a hard-to-fill position like math or science, it's even more difficult. There is also a concern that retainment might be harder if more schools go to a 4-day week.
The best teachers in the classroom give students the greatest chances at success; the NLCSD wants to continue to attract and retain the best.
Aren't there other methods that work better to retain teachers than the 4-day school week?
Of course, everyone wants to feel valued at their job. Here is a link to a great article about how we can work to retain teachers: Increasing Retention. In an interview with WACO schools, who have been using a 4-day school week calendar for 12 years, one of their principals said that a 4-day week wasn't the only key to their success. One thing he mentioned though was the time that the 4-day calendar used on Fridays to bring teachers together for a greater amount of uninterrupted time than our current early-out schedule. We envision using those Fridays to come together to communicate on various topics, to work in our professional learning communities and data teams, and to give teachers time to plan higher-impact lessons with fewer days.