Most children, offered the choice between four days of school each week or five, will think that a shorter week is a fine idea precisely because it comes with a longer weekend.
Adults, given the option of working four days each week or five, may have a more nuanced opinion. They, too, are very much in favor of three-day weekends, but they also realize that in some jobs, shorter weeks and longer days hamper productivity.
However, we remain unconvinced that its good educational policy, and Re-1 students need every advantage they can get.
On an assembly line, where a widget comes by three times each second, longer days, with fewer stops and starts, increase output at least up to the point at which a worker gets tired and loses both his rhythm and a finger. In an office environment, concentration may wane after eight hours, making five 8-hour days more productive than four 10-hour days. The amount of work accomplished can be measured against the cost of each schedule.
Education is not a mechanized process, and children are not known for their long attention spans. The longer the school day, the less fruitful its final hours.
Those long weekends can present problems as well. Remembering a newly introduced concept between final bell on Thursday and the beginning of class on Monday is more difficult than remembering it for 24 fewer hours. Its a smaller version of the reason most of every September is spent in review.
A four-day week simply creates a different rhythm. It segregates days spent on learning from days spent on recreation, including television, computers and video games.
The effects of a shorter week on educational performance no doubt have been analyzed many different ways by educators, but the two bottom lines for the Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 are these:
Indicators have not improved. The four-day week has not produced positive results.
And the cost savings were not great, just a few dollars per student per week. The financial savings do not justify the educational costs.
The return to a five-day school week would not be cost free. It would come at a time when Re-1 has no money to spend on it without cutting elsewhere, and the cuts have already been deep. Local taxpayers have no appetite for increased operating costs, especially on top of a proposal to build a new high school
But it doesnt make sense to build that new school and not occupy it fully, just popping in on Friday nights for athletic events. If theres quite a lot more happening than that, as we suspect there is, the savings of the four-day week disappear.
The results of Re-1s community survey on the school schedule will be enlightening, but community sentiment appreciation of three-day weekends, frustrations finding Friday child care or any factor other than students best educational interests cannot be allowed to drive the boards decision.
Its been a grand experiment (among Re-1s numerous scheduling experiments), but its time to go back to the tried-and-true five-day schedule. The district and the community must find a way to afford the education local students need.
