What would it be like having a four day school week? How would we manage this change in the system? Will it be beneficial for all of us? These are all questions that need to be answered. This change will all depend on how your school system works. Most schools use 180 days of the year to complete a whole school year. Shortening the week to have four school days and a three-day weekend could either shorten the school year or stretch it out.
There’s two ways this could go shortening the school week to four days instead of five. Either the original 180 days gets decreased, or some days of your summer break will get taken away. Some people want to enjoy their summer break, so shortening it to get an extra day off won’t be the fondest idea among people. The issue with shortening the school days is that all American schools use an average of 160-180 days for the school year. Shortening the summer would be forced in order to proceed with this action. If summer wasn’t shortened, schools would be forced to cram in lessons and units in every subject to finish quickly by the end of the year.
There are some school districts in other states that have already switched to a four day school week. Only a few states have followed through with this including Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Switching to a four-day week can also save school money. Not much money, but some money for more funding. The downside of this change is grades. With less school, grades would drop more. Kids who attend schools with the change lose an average of 35-60 hours of school a month. They also attend school for 145 days instead of the original 160-180 days that most schools have now. Therefore, less school means less time a student can learn. Yes, there are these downsides, but at least this will reduce stress and increase morale for students.
With the benefits of this four day school week, is it really worth it? That’s the real question that needs to be answered. The United States is not the only country that does this. Scotland, or the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain and even Iceland support the four day school week movement. Most of these schools that perform this really don’t have issues either. Most students’ grades have stayed the same, and some have even improved due to the reduced amounts of stress. Others use the extra day to finish up work and get their grades up.
We have interviewed a student named Pierce Smith. He is fairly new to Peru Schools after moving away in 6th grade and coming back this year. He is a Freshman. The first question was, how would you feel about a four-day school week? He said, “It would be great to have either Friday or Monday off instead of going to school for five days straight.” We then asked him what he would do during his time off. He then told us, “I would enjoy my time off and chill with my family and hang out with friends.” For the final question we asked him how he personally thinks his grades would do. “I think my grades would be fine if we had one day off.” Should we really input four-day school weeks into the next upcoming years? Personally, I think yes. So much stress could be relieved for both students and teachers.
