Parents are expressing their concerns after another school district just shifted to a four-day week, the latest in a series of developments affecting the current school year.
In Georgia, for example, students have a shorter summer break compared to other parts of the United States. However, they compensate for this by having the entire week of Thanksgiving, one week in September, two weeks at Christmas, a week in February, and a week-long spring break.
Four-Day School Weeks
On top of this time off, students in the state have asynchronous days, where they complete assignments at home. And have two or three half-day weeks throughout the year. Some parents feel like their kids are never in school for long before another break comes around.
What this means is that parents and guardians struggle to maintain a steady rhythm with work, career goals, and other responsibilities. Additionally, they are tasked with constantly arranging day camps and other childcare options for the time children are not in school, according to Upworthy.
This comes as in Texas, the Whitney Independent School District decided to implement a four-day week system coming into the 2025 school year. This makes it among the dozens of school districts in the state to make such a change, and nearly 1,000 across the country.
However, the idea of having less time having students at school is not about making life harder for parents, but more about attracting more teachers to go back to work. This comes as a lot of educators are leaving their profession due to a variety of factors, such as low pay, exhausting work conditions, and many others.
The state has at least 24 school districts that offer a hybrid schedule, where they have four-day weeks for a portion of the year. The changes have resulted in more than 126,000 students now being part of districts that have four-day weeks, Yahoo News reported.
Addressing Teacher Turnover
The change comes as Texas lawmakers passed a bill in 2015 that changed how classroom instruction was timed. It meant that districts no longer had to provide 180 days of classes but were instead required to have a minimum of 75,600 minutes.
The situation is also a reminder of how many teachers are needed in schools, as absences among educators were a challenge that 72% of U.S. public schools reported as going up after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the widespread use, research shows that four-day weeks have mixed results when it comes to affecting teacher turnover. Some studies found that schools that adopted the change experienced higher teacher turnover, while others recorded a decrease, as per Education Week.
