Teacher Shortage in American Schools Leads to Four Days a Week Schedule Switch

More than 1,600 schools in 24 U.S. states have switched to a four-day school week due to teacher shortage.

One of these states was Missouri.

While kids, teenagers, and even school workers from other states still dread Mondays, the small community of Lathrop, Missouri, loves Mondays as it is now the third day to their long weekend with school not starting until Tuesday each week, ABC News reported.

Students and teachers have another day to rest and prepare for another school week.

This four-day-a-week school schedule is becoming popular nationwide as schools struggle with widespread teacher shortages.

Switch attracts teachers to the rural areas

To make up for the hours of Mondays, classes have an extra hour from Tuesdays through Fridays, which both students and teachers do not mind and are willing to take. The extra hours added to the four-day week schedule paved the way for an increased overall instructional time compared to the five-day week school schedule.

There are some Mondays where teachers will be asked to attend professional development training or seminars, but they get to choose how to spend their additional rest day on most Mondays.

Lathrop has had this schedule for 13 years. It started due to budget pressures. Taking away Monday from the school week allowed the district to save money from staff wages and transportation costs.

However, school officials eventually noticed that the four-day week was attracting teachers to the rural area and was unexpectedly solving the teacher shortage problem.

The next couple of years after implementing the new school schedule, the school district had more teacher applicants and more qualified applicants for the first time in years, according to Superintendent Chris Fine.

The new schedule became the community's bonus reason for settling in Lathrop.

"I came here from a school that went five days a week and so when I moved here, it was a little hard to get used to. But as I got older, I started to appreciate the extra day we got. It gives you an extra day to work on projects you get on Friday, it allowed us to get bigger assignments that were more informative that we could learn from. I really enjoy Mondays," student Jesse Moore, 16, expressed.

Results were mixed when they assessed students' academic performance in a four-day school week schedule versus the five-day-a-week classes.

In a 2021 report - "Does Four Equals Five?" by the RAND Corporation, it was found that while there is an improvement in the test scores of students from schools with four-day weeks, it was at a slower rate than those with the five days schedule.

However, a 2022 study suggested that academic achievement depended on students' total time in school instead of how the week was organized.

According to former school administrator Jon Turner, who now studies four-day school weeks at Missouri State University, the key to finding the impact on academic performance should be based on how students spend their fifth day. If the fifth day is utilized for "rigorous teacher training, collaboration, looking at data, planning for the following week of instruction," one can find a benefit academically.

Expanding to the corporate world

The four-day week schedule might not remain exclusively in schools as it is also being eyed in the corporate world.

A survey by Qualtric, a cloud-software vendor, found that 92 percent of American workers favor a shortened work week, even if it means additional hours daily on the four working days, Euronews stated.

The survey participants expressed that the schedule will improve mental health while increasing productivity and efficiency.

Seventy-four percent of the employees declared they could complete the same amount of work even in a work week that would be less than one day. However, 72 percent stated they would need additional hours to complete their tasks on a four-day week schedule.