When the bell rang at a school in Independence, Missouri, the school’s 14,000 students were trying a new kind of learning: four days a week, Saturday through Monday. They are not alone in this matter. As the fall semester of American schools begins, more and more students will return to the “four days a week” class for the first time.
According to a report by CBS on August 7, in recent years, hundreds of school districts across the United States have begun to implement the “four-day school system.” CBS reporter Bradley Blackburn examines why some of the larger school districts have adopted the system and how it affects teachers, students and families.
As Superintendent of the Independent School District, Dale Herl and his staff have spent months planning for the major changes that will come to this year’s semester calendar. His school district is the largest “four-day school system” in the state. To comply with state requirements for instructional time, school schedules will be increased by 35 minutes of instructional time per day. “So the teaching session minutes are almost identical,” Hull said.
The district will charge $30 a day for parents who need childcare on Monday because of work, which will no doubt put financial strain on some families. “This could be an additional potential cost for them if they haven’t used any hosting services,” Hull said.
Currently, nearly 900 school districts in the United States operate on a four-day academic schedule. That number rose from 650 in 2020 to 876 in 2023, spread across 26 states. While smaller rural districts favor the old schedule, larger school districts are trying to attract and retain teachers with shorter instructional weeks. That could be a “selling point” for schools at a time when teachers across the country are facing shortages.
Schools in other parts of the country have noticed a similar pattern, with more and more schools undergoing such “reforms.” In Chico, Texas, the public school district has also announced that it will switch to a four-day schedule starting this year. Some school positions that used to receive only 5 applications recently suddenly received more than 20 applications, a quadrupling.
Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Education, is also paying attention to this trend: “There is currently no conclusive evidence that four days a week of class has any effect on learning.” Pallas believes that there are more The best way to address the teacher shortage, “is to give them higher salaries.” He added that Missouri is “basically the last” or “second-to-last” in terms of teacher salaries.
According to the American “Independence” magazine (Independence), some parents expressed concern about the impact of the shortened school hours. As the shortage of teaching resources becomes an issue for more districts, Hull hopes the shift in schedule will assuage concerns. “I think it really needs to spark a bigger national conversation about what we can do to support the growth of the teaching profession,” he said.
To attract teachers in rural areas, Missouri is transitioning from five-day to four-day schools district-wide by the 2022 school year, according to an online briefing from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-five per cent of schools switched to the new timetable. When this fact sheet was last updated in June, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reported that 144 school districts across the state are currently on a four-day school day.
(Article source: The Paper)
Article source: The Paper
Original title: Hundreds of school districts in the United States promote the “four-day school system”: or in order to alleviate the shortage of teaching resources, some parents have to pay an extra day of custody fees
Solemnly declare:Oriental Fortune publishes this content to disseminate more information, has nothing to do with the position of this site, and does not constitute investment advice. Proceed accordingly at your own risk.
#Hundreds #school #districts #United #States #promote #fourday #school #system #parents #pay #extra #day #custody #fees #alleviate #shortage #teaching #resources
2023-08-09 09:20:11
