When Budget Cuts Aren’t Enough: 4-Day School Week

By STEVE PEOPLES Journal Staff Writer

Portsmouth school administrators are researching a shorter school week, which they say could reduce the cost of utilities, food, staffing and transportation.

* * *

PORTSMOUTH – Faced with chronic funding shortages in recent years, Portsmouth school officials have already closed school buildings early and slashed the gifted and talented program, school supply accounts, middle school bus monitors and late bus runs.

Now, they may cut Fridays.

The School Committee voted earlier in the week to send a letter to the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education indicating that Portsmouth schools may move to a four-day school week as soon as next year.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said high school principal Robert Littlefield. “Frankly, when we’re being asked to think about closing schools down for one day a week, you know things are bad. At this point, we don’t have the luxury of discounting ideas.”

While Portsmouth officials have yet to determine the specifics of their proposal, they plan to extend the first four days of the week by roughly an hour each to make up for the lost day.

They haven’t yet released detailed estimates, but with anticipated savings in utilities, food, staffing and transportation, they believe they may be able to to save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

And while the proposal is less than a week old, there is no shortage of controversy.

Educators have expressed immediate concerns about the impact on student learning. Parents and elementary school teachers worry about young children being subjected to longer school days. And just about everyone wonders what to do with the children on the fifth day, as most parents work Monday through Friday, at least.

The head of the teachers union at the high school refers to the plan as “radical.”

“I think there are a lot of teachers who like the idea, but I don’t think it makes sense for our community,” said Portsmouth NEA president Carroll Feather. “If mom is home, great, but the reality is, most of the parents are working.”

The four-day plan is the brainchild of Schools Supt. Susan Lusi, who says the current strain on school resources in Rhode Island may call for radical measures.

“It’s radical only because we have such a tradition here of what schools should look like. When the world was created, there was nothing that said school was five days a week,” she said. “We are not the only community struggling with its budget, not by far. I think Rhode Island education is getting to a point where we need to think out of the box.”

RHODE ISLAND state law Title 16, Section 2-2, states that every city and town must “establish and maintain” public schools for “180 days annually.” But there are indications that Portsmouth’s plan could be approved without the passage of a new law.

“The question is, How do you define a day?” said state Department of Education spokesman Elliot Krieger, noting that Peter McWalters, the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education would ultimately determine the legality of Portsmouth’s plan.

Updated guidelines released this fall by the Board of Regents require 59,400 minutes of instruction each year for all public schools. That translates to 330 minutes a day — 51/2 hours — for 180 days. Including lunch, passing time between classes, and free periods, school days are generally about seven hours long.

But the guidelines allow for some flexibility, Krieger said.

“A school district can comply with these regulations utilizing a schedule other than a traditional six- to seven-class period . . . schedule,” the guidelines state. “A plan, approved by the school committee, for alternative means of complying with the instructional minutes requirements for students set forth in these regulations must be submitted by Dec. 31 of the year prior to the proposed implementation year.”

Krieger said that alternate plans could include extending the school week or shortening it.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the plan,” he said.

THIS IS UNCHARTED territory.

Portsmouth is the first community in Rhode Island to approach the state with a four-day school week proposal, according to Krieger. And it would be the first school system east of Michigan to adopt a four-day schedule, if the move is ultimately approved by the local School Committee and the commissioner of education.

But the four-day plan is not unheard of in education circles.

School districts first considered the concept after the energy crisis of the 1970s. And for many school systems across the country, desperate times have returned in recent years as energy prices and health-care costs continue to rise.

The National School Boards Association lists more than 100 school systems across 10 states — primarily in the rural west — that offer four-day school weeks, and a handful more that are considering the move.

Massachusetts legislators briefly considered changing state law in 2003 to allow a shorter school week, before the measure was shot down by the General Court.

While financial pressure typically prompts the adoption of a four- day schedule, many of the school systems that made the switch found unexpected benefits. Student attendance surged, and dropout rates fell. Teacher attendance increased as well, reducing the need and cost of substitute teachers.

Some districts reported improved academic performance, though others saw no change.

“It seems that the weight of evidence is that it’s neutral in terms of student achievement,” Lusi said. “I know it’s a lot for people to wrap their heads around.”

IN HOT SPRINGS, S.D., where the public schools switched to a four- day school week four years ago, parents and students are largely in favor of the schedule.

“The kids were elated. They loved it,” said Jami Dow, who moved to Hot Springs three years ago to be closer to her parents. A recent widow, she needed help raising her five school-age children.

The four-day week “did pose some problems for me sometimes,” said Dow, who works five days a week at the Hot Springs school administration office. “My personal preference is that I’d rather have my kids in school [five days], but I moved here. You have to make do with what you have. Luckily, I have my parents.”

Four years after its inception, most Hot Springs residents support the four-day school week. Only 14 percent of parents indicated they’d support a return to a five-day schedule. They are joined in that opinion by just 2 percent of high school students.

While there are no classes on Fridays, school officials decided to keep schools open during the morning, offering tutoring and open gym. Buses do not run, and students with transportation are free to come and go as they please.

Many families use the extra day to schedule doctor and dentist appointments, Dow said. Others spend long weekends visiting family in other parts of the state.

School administrators often use the day for staff training. School athletics operate as they did before, and games are often held at the school on Friday evenings.

Dow said that her older children spend Fridays working at part- time jobs. Her younger children spend time at the school, friends’ homes, and with her parents.

Hot Springs, a rural system of about 900 students, has yet to decide whether to make the four-day school week permanent.

Dow said the district hasn’t saved as much money as it had hoped, largely because the building stays open for part of each Friday. But she acknowledges it would be difficult to go back, especially with overwhelming public support for the four-day schedule.

LUSI, a Harvard-educated administrator who has worked in the state Department of Education and the troubled Providence school district, understands the implications of her proposal.

But she said she’s not playing politics.

“This is too much work for me, my staff, and the School Committee to just throw it out as a red herring,” she said.

Her office has been researching the four-day school week for much of the month. Lusi plans to discuss Portsmouth’s plan with the commissioner and his chief of staff next week. And the School Committee will hold two public hearings on the subject next month before taking a final vote.