Today’s children face different challenges and opportunities than the generations reared on traditional school days and the old, outdated agrarian school-year calendar.
So rethinking the standard school schedule makes sense, and we hope the debate simmering in a few of Colorado’s larger school districts translates into creative and intelligent schedules for children. However, we are skeptical of proposals to change the current schedule to a four-day week.
Sure, four-day weeks meet the state-required minimum standards for classroom time, but shouldn’t the debate be over how we can go beyond the minimum required seat time? Today’s increasingly sophisticated global competition makes the status quo no longer workable, and parents, educators and school board members ought to be debating longer days and longer school years, not budget shortcuts.
About a third of Colorado’s school districts — mostly small and rural — already have moved to a four-day week to cut costs, according to The Post’s Michael Booth. They report that it has worked well for them, and in those sparsely populated areas, which present demands on transportation unlike those in our urban and suburban areas, we see some wisdom in a four-day week.
In these cash-strapped times, so do some suburban districts that are debating the switch to four-day weeks.
Proponents say that by extending the school day an hour or so, four days a week essentially equals the five-day week, because it meets the state-required 1,080 hours a year of classroom time.
Teachers like it because they use the fifth day to prepare for class time and avoid working weekends. (They also make the same salary.) Kids like it because it allows for three-day weekends.
But as some charter schools have shown, keeping students in class beyond state limits can produce better results for many students.
Educators also know that some students benefit from frequent reinforcement. And critics question whether the longer days required in the four-day model would overwhelm student attention spans (though we’re not convinced that would be the case).
A study conducted by the state Department of Education in 2006 was unable to judge whether academic performance was affected by the four-day week.
A four-day week would definitely impact many parents, as they would have to find day care for their children during the week. That argument by itself misses the point of the education system, but the extra cost is a significant consideration.
Budget deficits may not last forever, but significant changes in school policy are difficult to reverse once economic conditions improve.
Colorado’s school districts should be thinking about the future, and how school calendars will impact their students who are forced to compete in a global economy.
