so school is starting up again. i know i canhear your groans from here. trust me i get it. but did you know there are some schoolswhere it’s always summer? well at least on friday. hey guys julia here for dnews as many schools across the country face majorbudget cuts, some turn to drastic measures.
advantages and disadvantages of 3d printing, a popular solution seems to be to simply cuta day off of the school week. according to the education commission of the states, about100 school districts across the us use four-day weeks. and it’s pretty big in colorado.over a third of the school districts there have adopted a four-day schedule.
and it’s not a new idea by any means. thereare some countries that have traditionally had a four day week. like france, where wednesdayhas been treated as the day for kids since 1972. it’s a whole day where students participatein sports or other enrichment activities. but recently, the government worried abouthow tired students might be with the longer days. so they’ve limited each school dayand added wednesday as a school day. but back in the states it seems to be catchingon. the reasoning goes that schools will savemoney by cutting a day off on things like busing, school meals and cutting energy usage.but does it actually save money? well according to the same report by the ecs, actual savingsrange from 0.4 to 2.5 percent per year.
so it seems the benefits aren’t exactlyfinancial, so what, if any, are there? well one recent study published in the journaleducation, finance and policy found something surprising. after switching to a four-dayschool week, many school districts in colorado found that math scores actually went up abit for 5th graders! and reading scores… really didn’t change. this surprised theresearchers, they thought that missing a day of school would lower scores. they thought that especially for the younger,elementary school kids, longer days on a shorter school week would hurt their academic performancebecause their attention spans are shorter. also, a longer weekend would give them moreopportunity to forget what they had learned."â€
which is called academic loss, a phenomenonmost noted when students go on summer holiday. when they come back many teachers have tospend weeks reteaching old material. when switching to a four day week, schoolsstill have to meet hourly government mandates. so the other four days of school are actuallylonger. while some might gasp at a longer school day, turns out it might be a good thingfor learning. longer school days the rest of the week means more time learning, goingin depth and less time rehashing old topics from the day before. and according to jimmy linderman, superintendentof the chattooga county school district in georgia, shorter school week means kids aremore rested and less rambunctious at school.
since switching to a shorter week, they’veseen a decrease of over 70% of discipline referrals. and as for the day off? whether ballet orsoccer or tutoring, the extra day means more time to spend on extra curriculars and otherenrichment activities. unfortunately it might not be a boon to allkids. low income student might miss that extra day of enrichment and even could wind up missingmeals that the school normally provides. and maybe it wasn’t so much a boost to student’sperformance, but to the teacher’s. some schools like sage international, a charterschool in boise use that day off, not to shut down the school and save on energy costs,but rather to keep the school open for the
teachers. they use that extra day as an in-serviceday for teacher training. they can spend the day learning new tricks of the trade and swappingclassroom success stories. but even for teachers who treat the friday off as a long weekend,there’s still a boost in morale. just like in many tech companies, like treehouse whoinstituted a four-day work week, who’ve claimed higher employee morale and greaterfocus. and that’s what one of the authors of thethat study think. they believe that teachers “were so enthusiastic about the four-dayweek--they did a better job.†a shorter school week sure sounds like a dream!but does the extra time off actually help
to ease your stress? check out this dnewsepisode that suggests that it might do the
opposite. so what do you think? would you like a shorterschool week? even if it means longer school days? debate down in the comments below
