There is a new trend to change the typical school calendar to a 4-Day Week.
It is controversial, but the trend is growing.
According to a report by CBS News:
Nearly 900 school districtsin the United States currently use a four-day weekly academic schedule. That number rose from 650 districts in 2020 to 876 districts, across 26 states, in 2023.
The popularity of this change is mainly being driven by a shortage of teachers. I guess telling prospective teachers and adjunct employees they only have to teach 4-days a week is attractive. And teaching for 168 days a year instead of 180 days is another carrot.
When I was teaching full time, I hated shortened weeks like those for national holidays.
👉There was less time to teach content.
👉The longer the breaks, the more was forgotten.
👉Students got less practice with reading and math.
👉Students had less time to develop social and emotional skills.
👉Students had less PE and recess in a supervised environment.
👉Classes like music, art, science, and social studies were cut short.
This reduction in days of school that isupposed to solve the teacher shortage and cut budgets, sounds like a one-day-a-week homeschool plan to me.
Which means the burden will fall to parents, who in addition to finding childcare for
🛩️long vacations breaks
🤒when kids are sick,
👩👧👦must now add on childcare for Day-5
And since research is showing that students’ grades go down when enrolled in 4-Day-a-Week schools, parents will find themselves back to pandemic days when they had to be teachers or hire teachers to run “pods”.
Luckily for Californians, the Education Code requires classes to be held 5 days a week.
But, of course,California has given out exemptionsto a few districts.
My goal is to keep parents aware of trends with unintended negative consequences that put more burdens on parents and rob children of opportunities.
That is why we must be diligent in our quest for providing children with what they deserve.