Public schools across the state are experimenting with ways to combat a growing crisis of teacher recruitment and retention. One possible solution is rapidly catching on: four-day school weeks.
Education Writers Association fellow Skylar Rispens has spent months talking to administrators and teachers across Montana about why they made the switch and whether or not it’s helping them attract qualified staff. She joined MTPR’s Austin Amestoy to share her findings.
Austin Amestoy: Skylar, when I think about a four-day school week, I think about how stoked I would have been back in K-12 to have an abbreviated schedule like that. And based on your reporting, it sounds like that morale boost is actually part of the calculus schools are making when they make this switch. So, what did you hear during your reporting about the factors behind schools making the switch to four-day school weeks?
Skylar Rispens: I think when we're talking about that, it's really important to go back in time because this is not necessarily a new thing in Montana. Schools in the state have been able to operate outside of the traditional five-day school weeks since about 2005. Early on, Montana schools were more often moving to that schedule as a means for cost savings, which is true too nationally now. However, anymore, Montana is kind of an outlier where recruitment and retention of teachers is paramount in these decisions. Teacher pay is at the bottom of the barrel compared to other states just across the board and that's been the case for a number of years in Montana. And not to mention, being a teacher is just a really hard thing anymore that requires a lot of time and energy, not only within the school day, but beyond it as well. You know, they have responsibilities with like chaperoning, grading, prep work, all of that. And having an extra day on Friday kind of allows teachers to get caught up on all of those things that they would normally have to do outside of the school day and beyond the bell. And from what I've heard from teachers is that the four-day school week, more often than not, offers them a better work life balance.
Austin Amestoy: So I'm really curious, Skylar, what do the schools that are making the switch look like? What similarities do they share? You know, who is making this switch, essentially?
Skylar Rispens: In the beginning, it was smaller, more rural school districts that were more agriculturally focused in their economics that were moving to the four-day school week. But anymore, larger school districts that are closer to population centers are considering making the move. Havre Public Schools, they moved to a four-day school week this year, and they're a Class A with 1,700 students, making them the largest school district in the state to operate four days a week. And actually, right now, Laurel Public Schools is currently exploring the possibility of moving to a four day school week and they're right outside of Billings.
Austin Amestoy: Well, it's definitely a concept that's catching on then. What do the numbers tell us about, you know, how many schools are making the switch?
Skylar Rispens: In the fall of 2008, there were 30 schools on the schedule. Last year, there were 222. That's an increase of 640%. In that time, there have been some growth spurts and some periods of consistency. But since the onset of the COVID pandemic, the number of schools in Montana operating on four-day school weeks grew by about 55%. There are only 12 counties in the state that have no schools operating on four-day school weeks.
Austin Amestoy: Wow. So, is the switch helping schools retain teachers, though? Is there any data to back that up at this point or is it too early?
Skylar Rispens: You know, that's a really new area of study in education research. So it's kind of difficult to tell when you're looking in those areas. But anecdotally, administrators and teachers that I talked to seem to be really happy with, you know, not only the work life balance that we talked about earlier, but, you know, it is actually kind of providing them maybe a few more teaching applicants when they're neighboring school districts might not see as many.
Austin Amestoy: What about students, Skylar? I think that's one big implication here is one less day at school a week, and it sounds like their schedules increase a little bit on those other days. But, are we seeing the impacts on students in terms of grades, proficiency, that kind of thing?
Skylar Rispens: When it comes to student academic achievement, you know, that's really also kind of difficult to gauge because peer-reviewed research is kind of in its infancy stages when they're looking at that. However, according to some data that I received from the Montana Office of Public Instruction, between 2017 and 2022, students on four-day school weeks generally had lower math and reading proficiency rates compared to their peers on five-day school weeks. However, school districts that operate four days a week generally had higher graduation rates than those on five days.
But there's also challenges associated when it comes to child care and children's nutritional needs. You know, roughly 45% of students in Montana last year qualified for free and reduced meals. And across the state, students are receiving both breakfast and lunch. So taking one day a week, that does cause a lot of concern for child nutritional advocates.
But, because five-day workweeks are still kind of the norm and four-day school weeks are kind of becoming more prevalent, that also kind of creates a challenge for families of 'what are we going to do if both parents have to work five days a week? What do we do on that Friday?' So, it's a very interesting opportunity for schools to work with their communities to find ways to kind of overcome those challenges.
Austin Amestoy: A sign of the times in so many ways in Montana it sounds like. Skylar, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us.
Skylar Rispens: Thank you for having me, Austin.
