As Kate Williams, principal of Alaska's Cordova Junior/Senior High School, and her team reflected on the benefits of their current four-day school week schedule, they also wondered about its potential costs and implications.
As of the 2022-23 school year, approximately 800 districts across the country (90% rural) have implemented a four-day school week (Thompson et al., 2022).
Cordova City School District, a rural district in southeast Alaska, first implemented the four-day school week in the 2020-21 school year out of necessity due to pandemic-related challenges. The district maintained the four-day school week for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years to provide continued flexibility for teachers, students, and families.
To try to understand how the four-day school week was working in their district, Cordova staff compiled data from attendance sheets and feedback from teachers and students. However, Williams and her team wanted to present the Cordova School District Board with research related to the four-day school week and its effect on student outcomes. This need spurred Williams to contact REL Northwest.
In years past, Williams had attended presentations by REL Northwest at the annual Alaska Principals' Conference. She appreciated the REL's evidence-based approach and used REL Northwest infographics and one-pagers in her work. She asked if REL Northwest could provide her with an annotated bibliography of the available research on four-day school weeks.
REL Northwest determined that her question was most appropriate for the new Ask an Expert service, which provides evidence-based information to questions that address high-leverage needs in the region.
REL Northwest connected with Dr. Paul Thompson, Associate Professor of Economics at Oregon State University and an expert on four-day school weeks, to summarize the current research for the Cordova team. Dr. Thompson and REL Northwest staff met with five members of the Cordova team (Williams, the district's superintendent, two school board members, and a teacher) to present the evidence and discuss its implications.
What the evidence says
In national surveys, students, parents, teachers, and administrators in districts that continue with the four-day school week report being highly satisfied with the schedule (Kilburn et al., 2021; Turner et al., 2018; Turner et al., 2019). Teachers viewed the four-day school week as a "perk" and noted that it was a key factor in their decision to remain in the district (Kilburn et al., 2021).
However, multi-state studies at urban, suburban, and rural high schools found that the four-day school week is associated with lower student achievement (Kilburn et al., 2021; Thompson & Ward, 2022; Morton et al., 2022). But it's the decreased time in school - not necessarily the reduced number of days - that appears to be related to the lower achievement. In rural districts, where many students frequently miss a day of school for sports or family obligations, researchers found no difference in high school student achievement between districts with four-day and five-day school weeks.
Using the evidence
Ask an Expert meeting participants from Cordova reported that having evidence presented by an unbiased expert allowed attendees to objectively view the data on what often can be an emotionally charged topic. The evidence shows neither clear positive nor negative outcomes from the four-day week, which mirrors Cordova's informal data.
Meeting with Dr. Thompson allowed the participants to ask questions and discuss how their local context relates to the sites in the studies. During the meeting, a lengthy discussion ensued about the research showing that a loss of instructional time - not a reduced number of days in school - may affect student achievement. The group discussed how examining and possibly increasing their current instructional time could be key to creating positive outcomes for students under the four-day school week in Cordova.
Following the meeting with REL Northwest and Dr. Thompson, Williams has shared the evidence with school staff and plans to review it with the full school board when they take up the issue in future sessions.
For more information about the Ask an Expert service, reach out to REL Northwest.
RELATED RESEARCH
REL Northwest shared the following research with Cordova City School District regarding the move to a four-day school week:
- Anderson, D. M., & Walker, M. B. (2015). Does shortening the school week impact student performance? Evidence from the four-day school week. Education Finance and Policy, 10(3), 314-349.
- Fischer, S., & Argyle, D. (2018). Juvenile crime and the four-day school week. Economics of Education Review, 64, 31-39.
- Morton, E. (2021). Effects of four-day school weeks on school finance and achievement: Evidence from Oklahoma. Educational Researcher, 50(1), 30-40.
- Morton, E. (2022). Effects of Four-Day School Weeks on Older Adolescents: Examining Impacts of the Schedule on Academic Achievement, Attendance, and Behavior in High School.
- Morton, E., Thompson, P., & Kuhfeld, M. (2022). A Multi-State, Student-Level Analysis of the Effects of the Four-Day School Week on Student Achievement and Growth. EdWorkingPapers.com.
- Israel, W., Mulitauopele, C., Ma, M., Levinson, A. H., Cikara, L., & Brooks-Russell, A. (2020). Adolescent health behaviors in schools with 4-versus 5-day school weeks. Journal of School Health, 90(10), 794-801.
- Kilburn, M. R., Phillips, A., Gomez, C. J., Mariano, L. T., Doss, C. J., Troxel, W. M., ... & Estes, K. (2021). Does Four Equal Five? Implementation and Outcomes of the Four-Day School Week. RR-A373-1. RAND Corporation. PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138.
- Thompson, P. N. (2021a). Is four less than five? Effects of four-day school weeks on student achievement in Oregon. Journal of Public Economics, 193, 104308.
- Thompson, P. N. (2021b). Does a day lost equal dollars saved? The effects of four-day school weeks on school district expenditures. National Tax Journal, 74(1), 147-183.
- Thompson, P. N., Gunter, K., Schuna Jr, J. M., & Tomayko, E. J. (2021). Are all four-day school weeks created equal? A national assessment of four-day school week policy adoption and implementation. Education Finance and Policy, 16(4), 558-583.
- Thompson, P. N., Tomayko, E. J., Gunter, K. B., & Schuna Jr, J. (2022). Impacts of the four-day school week on high school achievement and educational engagement. Education Economics, 30(5), 527-539.
- Thompson, P. N., & Ward, J. (2022). Only a matter of time? The role of time in school on four-day school week achievement impacts. Economics of Education Review, 86, 102198.
- Tomayko, E. J., Thompson, P. N., Smith, M. C., Gunter, K. B., & Schuna Jr, J. M. (2021). Impact of Reduced School Exposure on Adolescent Health Behaviors and Food Security: Evidence From 4-Day School Weeks. Journal of School Health, 91(12), 1055-1063.
- Turner, J. S., Finch, K. K., & Uribe-Zarain, X. (2018). Staff perspectives of the four-day school week: A new analysis of compressed school schedules. Journal of Education and Training Studies.
- Turner, J., Finch, K., & Uribe-Zarain, X. (2019). Three Midwest Rural School Districts' First Year Transition to the Four Day School Week: Parents' Perspectives. Rural Educator, 40(1), 1-15.
- Ward, J. (2019). The four-day school week and parental labor supply. Working Paper. Available at SSRN 3301406.