Pa. passes 4-day weeks for schools
Shortened schedules already exist in 26 states
Erie Times-News USA TODAY NETWORK
ERIE, Pa. – Students in Pennsylvania public school districts could go to school just four days a week.
Legislation signed into law in December amended the Pennsylvania School Code to eliminate the requirement for a minimum 180 school days, providing 900 or more instruction hours each academic year. Districts now can choose between 180 school days and hourly instruction requirements: 900 for elementary students and 990 for secondary students.
Four-day school weeks with extended hours Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday would meet the hourly instructional requirements. But school districts in Erie, aren’t raising their hands to sign on.
“We’ve not had those conversations here,” said Brad Whitman, executive director of Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit 5. IU5, based in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, provides educational services to 17 public school districts in Erie, Crawford and Warren counties.
“It comes with challenges that I don’t think we’re ready for,” said Erie School District Assistant Superintendent Teresa Szumigala.
School districts in other parts of the country, mainly in the Midwest and West, already operate on four-day weeks. And their number is growing.
Nearly 900 school districts in 26 states have abbreviated schedules, up from 662 in 2019, Paul Thompson, of Oregon State University, told the Associated Press.
Two-thirds of Colorado’s 178 school districts have a four-day week. In Oregon and Missouri roughly one-third of districts follow the schedule.
Pennsylvania school officials will need time to carefully consider potential benefits and drawbacks of an abbreviated week, which wasn’t the primary intent of the new legislation, Whitman said.
The idea was to give school officials more flexibility to cope with things like boiler failure, water line breaks and fire – including the May fire that closed Elk Valley Elementary School in Lake City, Pennsylvania, for the remainder of the academic year.
“The change allows districts more flexibility and allows them to change instructional modalities as they see fit so long as they still meet hourly instructional requirements,” Whitman said. “The solar eclipse was a prime example of districts having the flexibility to change their mode of instruction or even take a day off without being penalized.”
School officials may also see fit to lop a day off the school week.
Four-day school weeks can be attractive to staff and thereby help school districts fill vacancies. Teachers can use the day off to prepare lessons, grade papers, catch up with other work or simply as an extra day off, depending on contract agreements.
Manhattan School District #3 in New York switched to a four-day school week this academic year at the request of its teachers’ union, according to the district website. The union requested the shorter school week to help the district attract and retain teachers.
It worked in the Independence School District in Missouri, where the superintendent told CBS News in August that teacher applications increased four-fold after the district switched to a Tuesday-Friday schedule.
And in a December Education Week Research Center survey of teachers, principals and school district leaders, two-thirds said that they would be either “slightly” or “much more” willing to accept a job in a school district with a four-day week.
The shorter week also could help districts attract bus drivers that are in short supply nationwide. It also could save districts money on transportation and food service costs.
Opponents point out that the advantage of four-day districts in attracting teachers, drivers and other staff will disappear if more districts abbreviate the school week.
And a 2011 analysis by the Economic Commission of the States found that savings in transportation, food service and other costs were minimal, from 0.4% to 2.5% of school districts’ annual budgets.
In part, that may be because districts offer meals, at least at some schools, on Mondays or Fridays when classes aren’t in session, primarily to serve children who depend on government-subsidized school meals.
Other services might have to be abbreviated if school weeks are abbreviated.
“There are so many services that we provide for students through the week, not only meals but after-school programming, mental health and counseling services, and other services and supports to students and families through our community school model,” Erie School District’s Szumigala said. “To provide those services, we need students to be in front of us as much as possible.”
And parents would need to make arrangements for child care, particularly for elementary-age children, on Mondays or Fridays. And that can come at a cost.
Maybe surprisingly, 89% of parents of elementary-age students recently surveyed by Rand Corporation researchers said that they were “mostly” or “very” satisfied with four-day school weeks.