Making the Case for a Shorter School Week: What Do You Think?

As public schools are scrounging to find alternative solutions to constant budget crunches while improving the quality of education, a few ideas are running the circuit.  One of the proposals involves shortening the school week to four days while adding on extra time to the existing school day on the remaining four days.  Some people will argue that extending time to the regular day will cut into extracurricular activities, interfere with obtaining part-time jobs for upperclassmen, instill fatigue onto students that have a hard enough time staying awake with a shorter day, and not provide enough stimuli to students, particularly the younger students.  Some disagree, and think that they have come up with solutions to the array of debate topics, and feel that the solutions, some compromising, will enhance the public school system.

First that children are so accustomed to the short schedule that they have now, its just natural that some kids will complain that school is already an overload of homework EVERY night; and that they are already up until the wee hours working on homework, studying for tests, and finishing projects that are due the next day.  That it is difficult to balance, extracurricular activities, homework, nightly chores, family time, possibly a job, and their busy social lives, and attach an additional two hours onto their already “long” school day.  First, not all schools in the nation have the same amount of day.  Some have 5.5-hour days, while others have up to 8-hour days.  The students that we think can benefit most from the shortened 4-day week are school districts that have less than 8.5 hours per school day.  In all reality, if kids are trained to be at school for 8.5 hours per day, it is a closer resemblance to a real world scenario.  Most adults try to go out in their careers and put in at least 8.5 hours per day, generally, Monday through Friday.  If kids just start these schedules early in life rather than later, it will be an easier transition for them later in their adult life. 

Another benefit of extending the day to 8.5 hours is that classes could become more meaningful.  For example, if a class is an hour long today, and 20 minutes is devoted to “lecture”, 20 minutes is devoted to “practice” and questions, and 20 minutes are devoted to getting a head start on homework, then next day, when do you have time to review yesterday’s homework?  Because before you get into starting a new lecture, you have to make sure that the kids “get” the previous day lecture, so you should need an additional 20 minutes to review. The option is to do the review, then the new lecture or lesson, and then practice, leaving kids to take the homework home, begrudgingly.  If kids had 20 minutes to devote to homework, there would be less of it, and if kids had opportunity to do homework in class, they would take advantage of the time in school to get it done, so it would not become “homework”.  Because when kids get home from school, there are just other things to do.

The even more important realization is that kids that are college bound might as well get used to longer class periods, because there is not a college in this country that have hour long classes. 

Typically in high school, there are 4 core subjects, and there should be a foreign language offering as well as a physical education offering.  But generally, the social studies, and science elements are not required all four years of high school. The foreign language is required 2 years, and this schedule does not allow for children to have electives in the event that they want to play instruments or explore art classes or dabble in theater.  There should be accommodations for a couple electives.  So total, if you had 8 class periods, at an hour a piece, plus a half hour lunch and another half hour devoted to changing classes, this all but turns school into a 9 hour day, everyday, going over by at least an hour up to 3.5 hours, depending on what your current schedule might be in your district. 

Some schools in this country deal with core classes only.  There is no budget for electives, and PE.  Let’s face it, though.  If there is such an obesity epidemic in this country, don’t you think it’s time we get back to the gym? 

Your still thinking, how is this feasible?  Let’s start with the high school classes.  If you currently have 6 classes that are less than an hour of instruction because the kids have to travel from class to class, this means that you have approximately 6 hours of instruction Monday through Friday to equal 30 hours.    But suppose you take both of those electives, and continue those as hour long classes Monday through Thursday, you now have 8 hours devoted to electives for the week instead of ten hours.  But now let’s say we take the core classes and turn them into two-hour classes every other day.  In other words, on Monday and Wednesday, your first class, math would go from 7:30 -9:30am, you lose your hour of instruction on Friday but that two hour class would consist of enough time to review the previous day lesson, time for questions, get the next lecture, time to work on project or lab, and time to do homework, hopefully freeing up the students social calendar.  If you then have your foreign language after math, you apply the same concept, and now you have a total of 6 hours into your day, leaving a 2-hour block for social studies, and a half hour for lunch.  Your opposite days would be science and language arts, and PE.  It would look something like this:

Time	Mon/Wed	Tue/Thur
7:20 7:30-9:30	Announcements Math	Announcements Language Arts
9:30-10:30	Elective 1	Elective 1
10:30-12:30	Foreign Language	Science
12:30-1:15	Lunch	Lunch
1:15-3:00	Social Studies	PE
3:00-4:00	Elective 2	Elective 2

Now the advantages of a schedule like this one for high school students, is that first, it resembles a typical college schedule, making the transition to college smoother. 2^nd, if the school district would not require this much programming; they could adjust the electives so that it would match their offerings. 3^rd, kids that have part-time jobs can still get to them fairly early. With an efficient administration, you can have those students leave prior to the 2^nd election class because they may be able to either meet all their elective requirements before they graduate, or perhaps the school can require them to take an online elective.  It’s a fair assumption that some families today actually depend on the student to work to survive, but with the extra three-day weekend, the student can choose to do an online class to fulfill the need of an elective if the employer is not flexible with hours.  4^th, this schedule is more in-line with parents work schedules, generally.  And 5^th, it is even more in-line with a parent schedule, if the student has extra-curricular activities or practices sports after school.  Students would be home by 7 or 7:30 with additional activities, or by 4:30 or 5:00 and still be able to finish their tiny bit of homework.  Also note that with the staggered schedule, if the homework for math was not complete when they leave, they have until Wednesday morning to complete it, instead of always being due the next day. 

The class offerings would be more efficient.  The focus would be for teachers to plan lesson plans that enable the students to get the most you can out of the class time instead of the borage of interruptions and the time wasted when students settle in and get organized.  What I hear from students sometimes is that there is just not enough time.  Till the students get organized and settled into class, there is either not enough time for questions, and never enough time to work on either practicing or homework in the classroom.  The students want vigor.  They would prefer to have homework be something of a project, rather than just busy work that teachers assign in order to fill their lesson plans.

So with a schedule that can incorporate, review, lecture and note taking, questions and practice, labs and project time, and “homework” inclusive would make the classes more meaningful with more “hands-on” type of experiences.

We cannot expect children in the elementary level to maintain the same vigor and keep them focused for two hours at a time; but children have more routine tasks to learn.  They would still have a similar schedule as far as time goes, but their day would be the same Monday through Thursday with shorter class periods.  A typical schedule would look something like these:

Minutes Kinder-1	Curriculum		Minutes 2nd-3rd	Minutes 4th-5th
10	Announcements		10	10
30	Music		40	40
40	Math		50	60
20	Recess
40	Read		50	60 Language Arts
30	Writing		30
20	Rest
20	Recess		20
40	Social Studies		50	60
30	PE		30	40
30	Lunch		30	30
20	Recess		20	20
30	Life Skills		30	40
30	Rest
40	Science		50	60
20	Recess		20
40	Computers		50	60
30	Art		40	40

So you can observe where the children start out with just as long of a schedule as the high school students.  They experience more of a routine with “play” and “rest” schedules diminishing, as they get older. Class periods get longer so as to prepare them for schedule changes in the amount of time for each offering as students advance. There are rest times for the younger students, and a life skills class.  This is a class that incorporates teaching sharing and manners to the younger kids, grooming, safety, and basic nutrition habits to the 2^nd & 3^rd graders, and then more on the healthy habits and bully prevention to the oldest students.  Its not meant to replace what a parent teaches, just reinforce what they might teach.  In school, when parents, teachers, and children are on the same page as to the curriculum, it breeds less conflict.

So, ultimately, where is this taking us?  With the Friday off, it leaves open a day for teachers to do their in-service requirements.  The funkiness of having half day school days, sit well with nearly no parent that have to run out of their way in the middle of the day to pick up a child.  Who thought of that?

The next thing, the Friday off provides time for certain school trips to take place instead of interrupting the regular daily routine.  Another advantage is that the facilities can still be used for assemblies, sporting events, and practices and club meetings, parent–teacher conferences and other school functions. 

But the advantage of all of this is that most classrooms will be closed from using electricity, and school buses, except for special functions would be idle, thus savings incorporated to help fund any extra programming that could occur with expanding schedule offerings. Also, that Friday lunch could be substituted for some healthy snack offerings to help provide some extra energy for the longer school day. 

The most important advantage is that it allows for students to have an extra day, for teachers to have some time to do lesson plans and provide time for families to spend more time together.  Students can work on homework and projects on the Friday, and devote more time to family time the rest of the weekend or pursue part-time job opportunities.

If teachers are spending 35 hours per week teaching, they also need to spend less time grading assignments and quizzes so that they can prepare lesson plans.  If homework and projects are getting completed in the classroom, then the teacher has time to either prepare lesson plans or grade homework or tests from previous days.  I would call that a win-win situation.

Remember that teachers also have to do playground duty in the primary education levels or they may chair a club and that is extra time they contribute to benefit the lives of students.  We must appreciate our teachers and take the challenge to revise and reform the public school system.  Would you support a schedule similar to the presentation?  Why or why not? Let’s work out the bumps!