In Hidalgo County, N.M., school bus rides can last more than an hour one way. That's a lot of diesel fuel.
About 260 students attend Animas Public Schools, one of two districts in the rural county where warm-weather temperatures often rise above 80 degrees during the school year. That's a lot of air conditioning.
To save some money, Animas switched to a four-day school week more than a decade ago, said Superintendent Jerry Birdwell. Having Fridays off equals one less day a week to send out buses, plus lower heating and cooling costs - an estimated $20,000 in savings annually.
For years, very few other school systems - none in Virginia - followed suit. Now, confronted by rising prices for fuel, food and energy, the Suffolk division is asking its School Board to consider it. With roughly 14,000 students, Suffolk's school system is the smallest among the five cities in South Hampton Roads.
"It's something that more districts are looking at right now, especially rural districts" with longer bus routes, said Marc Egan, director of federal affairs for the Alexandria-based National School Boards Association.
Still, only slightly more than 100 out of some 15,000 nationwide have made the change, Egan said.
"This is not a major switch that's taking place," said Daniel Domenech, executive director for the Arlington-based American Association of School Administrators. "It certainly is on the fringes."
The enormity of such a change is one reason larger districts have not adopted that schedule, educators said. Other reasons include accommodating after-school activities and forcing working parents to find additional day care.
"There's not a lot of great information about whether student achievement increases or decreases due to changes in the schedule," Egan said.
In order to reap some of the savings, the school division's facilities have to be shut down with no heating or cooling, said Chesapeake School Board member Tom Mercer. Friday would be the likely day off.
"When you start that, what would you do with Friday basketball?" Mercer said. "What would you do with plays? Would they continue on Fridays? What would you do on homecoming nights? Would you have a homecoming dance at the schools?"
For the Virginia Department of Education, the main concern would be making sure schools meet the 990 hours of instruction time required each school year, said spokesman Charles Pyle.
Animas Public Schools' solution was to extend the school day. Birdwell, the superintendent, said the division might eventually have to lengthen the school year or go back to a five-day week to meet the demands of federal No Child Left Behind standards.
Parents, who fought the change at first, have now grown used to it, Birdwell said.
"I believe if we told them that we were going back to a five-day week there would be an uprising," he said.
At least a couple of Virginia school divisions have publicly discussed a four-day school week within the past two months. The school boards in Bedford, Halifax and Middlesex counties are not making the change but will keep it under consideration for the future, administrators said.
"I don't think any of us are going to be playing by the same rules that we've always played by," said Halifax Superintendent Paul Stapleton.
The Suffolk School Board will take on the issue at a fall work session, said spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw. The staff is in the process of putting together a report to study the pros and cons.
Superintendent Milton Liverman said he worries that a four-day week would make it harder to recruit bus drivers - with one less day to work, it is likely the drivers would take a pay cut.
Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach are operating under a four-day workweek this summer but have no plans to formally discuss that schedule for the regular school year.
Kentucky's Webster County Schools district has saved at least $259,000 a year since converting to a Tuesday-to-Friday school week in 2003, said Superintendent James Kemp. Fuel and insurances costs are lower, plus fewer substitutes and regular personnel are needed.
The roughly 2,200-student district has used the savings to expand the kindergarten program and create a group of "master teachers" who act as instructional supervisors.
"It's a reinvestment of that money that was saved," Kemp said. "More money in curriculum and instruction means better results."
Staff writer Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer contributed to this report.
Hattie Brown Garrow, (757) 222-5562 hattie.brown@pilotonline.com
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four day school week
The school system in Webster County, KY has a four day school week and they have 1050 hours of instruction per year as opposed to our 990 hours per year. As for the argument that kids can't focus for 7+ hours a day.....kids will be fine. They sure can focus on a TV or video games for seven hours if allowed or put in 7 hours for athletics, but not for school?
My gut feeling here is that
My gut feeling here is that a four day school week is not a good idea. Notwithstanding the financial considerations, the drop out and graduation rates will plummet to rock bottom. The rates are dismal enough now. The kids are the ones that will suffer. As for the financial reasoning, there are program that can be curtailed to help defray the costs. Certainly the option exists for a restructuring of bus routes. The parents can get their kids to a bus stop or start taking them themselves. Sure it would be something of a hardship for some, but thats a sacrifice we make when we bring the kids into the world.
Suffolk: This is a huge mistake --- don't allow this to happen!!
Re-think student zoning
If they want to save on diesel fuel they need to re-think their student zoning AGAIN. I live just off of the SW 58 bypass. To get my daughter to school last year, I simply got on the bypass and hopped off at the 1st exit. Kilby Shores' parking lot is about 50ft from the end of the exit ramp. I could make the round trip drive in 10 minutes. They built Hillpoint, a new school by Obici on the other end of town from us. My daughter and many like her have be re-zoned to this new school that is much further. They have students that live closer to Hillpoint transiting to this end of town to go to Kilby Shores! I don't trust the city's bus system or drivers, so I will now be driving past her old grade school to take her to her new one this year. They have invented this cross-city bussing system that makes no sense.
We don't even live in any of the neighborhood(S) that they targeted for re-zoning. After a call to the school boa
Lorenzo-
Thanks for your straightforward, accurate comments.
Reality Check
1/ The Commonwealth of Virginia requires at least 990 hours of student instruction or 180 days.
2/ I do not know what the total budget is for Suffolk or for any other Hampton Roads school division, but the VBCPS 2008-2009 budget is approximately $750 million....a savings of $65K is chump change. If gasoline becomes a problem (and I am sure it will) in Virginia Beach, they can cut some administrators...or they can eliminate the "intensified block" at Princess Anne HS that requires a double bus run...or they can phase out academies which picks students up from one end of the city to take them to classes at the other end...or they can cancel some contracts with consultants...or they can cut their paid lobbyist (they pay dues to the Va School Boards Association for two lobbyists)...or they can eliminate those positions where retired employees have returned and are collecting both their retir
Replying strictly to the
Replying strictly to the article, the idea of a four-day school week is unsettling. I am a junior in a Newport News high school and once 1:30 rolls around, it's hard for me to stay focused. I know it's hard to fathom for many adults but YES, your children do get burned out after five hours of sitting around. To add an extra two hours to our schedule every day would be teribly unwelcomed. Not to mention the destruction of the reason why the majority of parents can rest their heads at night: after-school activities. Those would all be nixed. I know many students who thrive on these, one of those being myself.
Well said
Well put, Lorenzo. This is about money, pure and simple. It's either a 4 day week, or raise taxes to buy the diesel fuel. Last I saw, diesel was $4.73 a gallon. The other choice is to cut somewhere else in City services to cover the incressed cost. Maybe lay off some city employees? Raise fees for city services such as building permits, garbage collection, etc? There is no free lunch.
The concern about available day care is a valid concern, and also the crime rate will probably go up. What will those kids do all day Friday who are too old for day care? Roam the neighborhoods looking for trouble? Perhaps they'll use the time for volunteer work...yeah, right.
Oh, Please
Folks - this is all about gas prices, your taxes and how to stretch a dollar. Not a darn thing else!
Virginia is "Right to Work" state (commonwealth) so union impact is minimal at best.
Hours in the classroom are set by State law and have been the same for decades.
I have yet to meet an Administrator that told me to teach to the test and "No Child Left Behind" doesn't bother a quality teacher.
As far as a "Quality Teacher" goes - If you are not cut out for teaching either you get asked to leave or the kids run you off within your first year.
Those kids are just as smart as we were 20, 30, and 40 years ago - the further away you get from the scene of the crime the smarter you think you were (go back and ask YOUR teachers).
The rest of the world has a different view of education than we do - the "average" kids get moved out of an academic track in the eighth grade and sent off to vocational schools. ALL of our kids test again
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but
...doesn't VA have a statute requiring 180 calendar days of instruction each year? Seems to me the GA would have to act before Suffolk can do this.
ummm...
Of all these posts, I am yet to see where the problem is being discussed; The labor unions are dictating what happens in our schools. Why do you think private schools put out higher quality students for about the same cost??? Why do you think Obama sends his kids to private schools??? Wake up, if you want your kids to have the best education and get after your representatives about school vouchers (the NEA labor union hates them, wonder why?).
Longer, not shorter school days/weeks
I agree with several of the other posters here. Our school systems are producing less than acceptable graduates. Partly to blame is teaching to pass SOL's versus teaching to prepare for adulthood. The other part is the lack of time students actually spend in a classroom. If you do some quick research, you will see that our kids spend less time in school than virtually any other students across the world, even in nations much less fortunate than the USA. The smartest kids I ever knew were from Vietnam, and they were refugees from a war torn nation. If we can work 40+ hours a week, our kids can spend that much time learning for the future.
What would actually happen
Is that the schools would extend the school days Monday through Thursday, and instructional time wouldn't be affected, as they would still receive 190 days on instruction as mandated by state law. The 4 day week is already in place in the Beach schools during the summer. Supposedly it saves the city $65K by doing so, even though when I went into my room last week the AC was running, and I had no idea why, since I haven't been in it since mid-June. As for child care, if the students' days went from 8-5, just like their parents, then technically having a sitter on those days wouldn't be as expensive, since they could take their kids home with them on the way home from work. Obviously there are parents who work different hours, as will always be the case, but in the end, it would be cheaper to pay for only 1 day/week for a sitter rather than 5 days/week.
If other companies allowed for more flex-time, then a 4 day, 10 hr day would be possible for more people (my old employer allowed us to do that, or work from home on the 5th day, and it was great for many parents).
I don't think enough parents will support this though.
There should be MORE time, not fewer days spent in school
I agree w/previous posters; more time should be spent in school. I don't understand why 6.5 hour school days are the norm (at least in Va Beach). Other places around the country have longer days. There isn't even time for high schoolers to eat lunch (unless they give up a whole 90+ minute block). How did we get such short school days in a right-to-work state where the teacher unions aren't powerful?
There will be too many hassles for Suffolk to ever implement a four-day school week.
Yeah, but think about it,
Yeah, but think about it, the environment and polar bears are so much more important than educating the future of our country. There are consequences to everything and you have to think if this one is intended by the democrats who are blocking a comprehensive energy policy. Think about it, shorten school days, our children are less educated therefore more dependent on government, which means the democrats get more votes. Gore and Pelosi must be proud.
What about the children?
When was a survey sent out to the students, or the Parents. Something like this you would think Some kind of vote should have taken place, Yet we stress how important education is and then we cut days because of the budget. Which is more important education or the budget. Some of these kids aren't able to tolerate being in a school setting all day like that. I have experienced first hand what the teachers and school officals go through in a days work. Now you say its about the budget. So are the teachers receiving extra pay for extended hours during the day? Are the bus drivers going to receive full-time pay instead of part-time pay. They are already underpaid. I just dont think that this is a very good idea. But hey who am I. I am just a citizen with no voice that has to go along with what the city and state implements. So are my voting rights only for Presidential,city and state elections for office? This
I don't think so.
From China Daily online: "On average, China's children spend 8.6 hours a day at school, with some spending 12 hours a day in the classroom. The survey also claimed that the majority of children spend longer hours at school than their parents spend at work."
Sure, shorten the school week for our kids. Just make sure that the Chinese language is a required subject.
I say this because, at the current rate, our kids, thanks to our concerns about oil over their futures, will end up carrying the water for their Chinese counterparts.
If anything, we should have longer school days, if we want to have our kids compete in the global economy.
Doesn't sound like a good idea
If you drop a work day from the school schedule, that means parents that work will have to find day care for that one day. Will there even be enough day care available for a single day of the week where everyone needs it? Then you're moving the transport of the kids from a highly efficient bus to a whole bunch of people in individual cars driving back and forth to the day care. It sounds like everyone looses except the school budget.
GREAT IDEA
This is a great idea. Unfortunately, everyone will just sit around talking about it forever and never get anything done. It wouldn't hurt the quality of education. In fact, as long as the actual total time in class doesn't change, the quality of the education could only improve. It's the same benefit that comes from the change to 'A' and 'B' days. A certain number of minutes are wasted at the beginning of class while attendance is taken and other administrative tasks are taken care of. In the old days of 50-minute classes, that was at least 10% of the instructional time. By having a class twice as long every other day, the time wasted on administrative tasks and review of the previous days material is cut in half. If the school day was longer due to implementing a 4-day school week, that's 1 more day's worth of instruction added onto an existing day vice another day of wasted prep-time at the beginn
I can understand the
I can understand the budgetary needs and good sense it might make to reduce the numbers of school days due to energy costs. However, I am saddened that this country's policies and actions have bought us to a point where we must consider rationing such an important service such as education to our young.
At a time when we should be increasing educational services to our children we are forced to reduce them. This may not bode well for America's future. How did we get here?