Is the four-day school week good for education?

Why has it come to - Having a four day school week if only we could provide a babysitting solution? Let me sugest DAY CARE! I work in a school system sometimes it feels like we are only there to babysit. Some parents are to busy to take an interest in how their children are doing, to busy for parent-teacher conferences, to busy to help on a report, buying a simple supply like a poster board costing 50 cents is asking way to much. Maybe a four day week will give mom or dad some more time to take an hour in the week to give their child some attention to what might be going on in their lives.

I really think this is a real bad idea. Education is already suffering as it is. Giving kids an extra day off would be a mistake. A lot of parents work during the week and wouldn't be able to watch there kids and when kids get bored and there's no supervision kids get into trouble. Also as for the argument that kids wouldn't lose much education because the school days are longer are fooling themselves. Kids have to be at school 1 hour earlier in this scenario. Kids are tired as it is when they come in for before 9pm now making them wake up an hour earlier the kids will be so tired they won't be paying attention anyways and the extra hour at the end of the day combined with the extra hour at the beginning the kids will be to tired they will tune out. The kids have the weekend to rest up they don't need an unnecessary 3rd day. There education will suffer

President Obama wanted student to spend more time in education.
if we cut the days to four days, isn't that going to the wrong direction?

I just wanted to say that I am all for a 4 day week. For one, I am at the school for an extended time anyway. I may as well be getting paid for the hours that I'm there instead of just giving my time. Next, our community's major job provider opporates on a 4 day week. When they are off on Fridays, parents take their kids out of school and have extended weekends anyway.

Several other districts in my state have already switched to 4 day weeks and they love it. Not only does attendance go up, but so do the test scores. They do show savings to their budgets, which is a major plus in this economy. I didn't even think of the cost of fuel for buses, but that is another great savings.

Great post!!

I have been a teacher for 6 years and have studied many of the models for a more effective education for our students. How we are going to catch up with the rest of the world when we cut the importance of education? If we can find the funding for car companies that have been heading in the wrong direction for sometime, we can do the same for education, which has already begun. Administrators and teacher have to change the image of their classrooms to make it such that kids get to be there rather than have to be there. I know a lot of you know the teacher Rafe Esquith. He is not an oddity, he is a regular person like us that works hard without counting hours. We all need to move in that direction: teachers, administrators, and parents.

I think a four-day school week is a great idea, but we also need a four-day work week. We live in a post-industrial society, but we're still trying to mold our lives to the factory time clock.

Budgets? Family time? Rest? Give me a break. When you take time off for these reasons the people that want to make a difference in their own lives or the lives of others will NOT even consider these as possibilities. They will use that opportunity to pass you by academically, socially, financially and in the end successfully. The only way to even consider a 4 day school week would be for the fifth day as community service day or extra-curricular day. The teachers should be there planning, collaborating, or invested in professional development anyway, so the building will be open. If parents want more time with their kids throw away the Xbox, limit your child to one sport instead of three, or learn to live with less and have a parent stay home.

Intersting discussion but soon to be obsolete as virtual learning makes days & times a secondary discussion with students/parents making choice about when to go to school.

John
the antiludderite

I think it would be good only if the rest of society adopted a 4 day work week, with the 5 th day designated as a rest, family, hobby, sport, whatever day. That would give businesses and pubic agencies the savings they want, require them to be more efficient in their 4 days at work and provide rest time for their employees. The struggles many school districts have with students could be lessened if the parents and extended families spent more time doing things together. So I voted no until the rest of the business and public world also take the 5th day off. The students do need structure and engaging activities, not more free time that is unprofitable for anyone except the drug suppliers and game producers. Or an alternative: Make the 4 days extremely productive and let the 5th day be for expansion of the mind and body with students still in school on that day but doing things for their own expansion and challenges, but it must be structured. So that does not mean send them home to an empty house

I'm the (con) side which is wanting to stay the five days school week. I really need information for the school week!