Four-day school week?
PA districts have green light, but local schools are unlikely to change
MetroCreative
School districts in Pennsylvania are now allowed to have classes four days a week instead of the traditional five-day school week, but it probably won’t happen anytime soon locally.
Legislation signed into law in December 2023 amended the Pennsylvania School Code to eliminate the requirement for a minimum 180 school days and 900 or more instruction hours each academic year. Instead, districts now can choose between 180 school days or 900 instruction hours for elementary students and 990 hours for secondary students.
The “or” gives districts the option to change the number of days students attend classes, as long as they meet the hourly instructional requirements.
As of September, Pittsburgh’s City Charter High School was the only school district in Pennsylvania to switch to a four-day school week.
No public schools have adopted the shorter school week.
“At Chartiers-Houston, we are not looking to move to a four-day week during the school year. I think the move would require some parents of younger children to pay for an extra day of day care, while for other parents who rely on the school to provide hot meals, it would deprive students of a meal that day,” said Dr. Gary Peiffer, superintendent of Chartiers-Houston School District. “For the secondary students involved in extracurricular activities on Friday nights, the game schedules would be seriously impacted as different sports have games on different nights.”
Superintendent George Lammay of Washington School District said officials there are committed to the 180-day school year.
“We do more than reading, writing and arithmetic each day. Students have come to depend on us for a lot of things in our community, and for us, to go for four days would be counterproductive to what we’re trying to do,” he said.
The four-day school week is not a new idea. Nationwide, about 900 school districts (up from 662 in 2019) in 26 states – mostly in western states including Oregon, Missouri, and Colorado, where more than two-thirds of school districts have four-day weeks – have moved to a shorter school week.
The four-day schedule is most popular in small, rural school districts, and has been seen as a way for school districts to recruit and retain quality educators to fill open teaching positions amid teacher shortages across the country.
The shorter week also could help school districts save money on transportation and food service costs, and help attract bus drivers that are in demand nationwide, proponents say.
But so far, research of four-day weeks has yielded mixed reviews regarding student achievement results and operating cost savings.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, school districts are opting for a wait-and-see approach.
Brandon Robinson, superintendent of Jefferson-Morgan School District, said his administration hasn’t considered making any changes to the calendar.
“At this time, our district does not have any interest in a four-day school week, as we feel it is not the best option for our students or community,” said Robinson.
In Fayette County, Richard Evans, superintendent of the Connellsville Area School District, said the district believes there are benefits to the shortened week, including transportation costs; but, he has concerns about the four-day school week.
“I wouldn’t say it’s not feasible, but our initial thought is we did have some reservations about (the four-day week) when the law changed last year. Obviously, the positives to it could be some potential cost-saving measures in some places, but there are a couple of glaring concerns with that model, one being the several collective bargaining agreements and contracts with outside entities and contractors. A lot of those include an amount of days and times, so you’d have a lot of contract language to navigate with that,” said Evans.
He also addressed child care needs.
“Going from five days to four days would require a significant change in child care needs and making arrangements for kids,” said Evans. “Most importantly, though, we feel strongly as educators that the most important thing for our students is to be in school and in-person classes. We value that. When you take a day away from the school week, you’re gaining one less day of face-to-face learning, one less day of socialization, one less day of school breakfasts and lunches.”
For the 2024-25 school year, the California Area School District implemented a four-day week for educators – students still attend for five days – that has resulted in increased instructional time for students and provides teachers with flexibility for class preparation and grading.
“We kind of pivoted. I can’t compete and compare with some area school districts when it comes to salary, and we’re obviously feeling the impacts of the teacher shortage, so I wanted to think outside the box, so we approved a three-year pilot program,” said Dr. Laura Jacob, superintendent of California Area School District.