Four-day weeks get passing marks

Depending on the outcome of a school board vote next week, West Glacier Elementary's 24 students may have Fridays off beginning next fall.

West Glacier is considering joining scores of schools across the nation that have, in recent years, moved to a four-day week. Proponents say the schedule provides families and schools more flexibility, reduces absences and may save districts money.

About 100 schools across the United States operate on a four-day schedule.

One-fifth of those are in Montana - primarily in small, rural districts such as West Glacier. They tend to have low student populations and parents who are able to be home on Fridays, thus preventing overloaded day cares or an abundance of latch-key kids.

Several school districts in Montana switched to four-day weeks after the state Legislature changed how long schools have to be in session each year.

For years, schools had to provide 180 instructional days each year. In 2005, new legislation passed requiring instead a certain number of annual instructional hours: 720 hours for kindergarten through third-grade students and 1,080 hours for fourth- through 12th-graders.

When that change took place, 'schools started to get creative and more flexible in how they deliver education," state Superintendent of Schools Denise Juneau said.

Rural schools in particular embraced more flexible schedules, she said.

Many of their students who participated in extracurricular activities missed school - sometimes all day - on Fridays to travel to competition. Small budgets in rural districts made it prudent to consider more energy-efficient schedules. Districts could save a little money if staff members were at school fewer days.

About 20 Montana districts operate on a four-day or otherwise "alternative" schedule. Arlee will join the ranks next fall; its school board recently voted to move to a four-day week.

Helmville School, a 26-student K-8 district about 25 miles northeast of Drummond, has operated on an alternative schedule for nearly three years.

The district hesitates to call it a four-day week, head teacher Susan Graveley said. Instead it prefers to leave flexibility in its schedule to allow for unforeseen closures - such as when a broken water pump shut the school down for a day in March - or to prevent four-day weekends when students are out of school for Monday holidays.

A few years ago, the school would be nearly empty on Fridays when students wanted to watch their older siblings in extracurricular activities at Drummond High School, Graveley said. Often staff members wanted to go to games, too.

"We would have a skeleton crew at school," Graveley said, adding that the large number of absent students made teachers hesitant to introduce new material, or even review old lessons, on Fridays.

The school was in a bit of a bind. It encouraged families to spend time together, and it wanted families to feel connected to the high school, Graveley said. Helmville needed a different option so its students wouldn't suffer academically.

Even so, Graveley, who has more than 30 years' teaching experience, said she initially was hesitant about the alternative schedule.

"I asked, 'If I think it's going south, or if it's not working well, or if the kids need the extra day - if it doesn't feel right, could we go back?'" she said.

The school board agreed, and trustees and teachers paid close attention to students' performance. They met monthly to discuss how the new schedule was working.

"It took me three months to say, 'We're doing fine,'" Graveley said. And three years later, the situation still is fine, she added.

Little research exists on the four-day week's impact on academic achievement. At a recent community meeting, West Glacier Principal Cortni King cited data from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory that suggests four-day weeks neither positively nor negatively affect student performance.

Jennifer Klump, education resource adviser for the Portland-based nonprofit, said she has seen four evaluations of the four-day week. None of them are recent and none are conclusive. The Colorado Department of Education conducts annual updates on its four-day districts, but that information is more anecdotal than based on hard data, Klump said.

In Helmville, the four-day week hasn't seemed to impact students' performances, Graveley said.

"We have had none of them slide back or stop in growth," she said. "We haven't seen any effect. That's one of the things we really watched."

Families have embraced the alternative schedule, she said. After the first year, the school asked families and seventh- and eighth-graders what they thought of the four-day week and whether they wanted to keep that schedule.

"We had 100 percent wanted to do it again," Graveley said.

Ovando School, a K-8 district about 15 miles north of Helmville, has met with similar success, head teacher Leigh Ann Valiton said.

"The four-day school week has worked out real well for us," she said.

Ovando had problems similar to Helmville, with several absences on Fridays, Valiton said. The new schedule, which was implemented two years ago, has alleviated that problem.

The four-day week also has given families more time with their children, something Valiton said is very important in their community.

"The parents right now absolutely love it," she said. "This gives them more opportunities to do what is the basis of community."

The community is an important factor for any district considering moving to a four-day week, Graveley said.

"The four-day week works for us. I would never say to anybody else, 'It'd work for you, too,'" she said. "I think it's really important that it be a community decision, based on their stories."

West Glacier hopes to hear more stories from its community at a public meeting at the school at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The school board will vote on the four-day week proposal at its regular meeting April 21.

For further information, contact the school at 888-5312.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com