Since an entire day is cut off the week, that extra time needs to be made up during the remaining four days. At my school, the class went from 8:15 a.m. until 4:15 p.m. — about an hour or two longer than a typical five-day-week school’s day. An eight-hour day is undesirable for elementary-aged kids. It can rapidly tucker them out. For high school kids, longer school days mean longer school nights. If a student is involved in sports, the school gets out at 4:15 p.m., then practice goes until 6:30 p.m. After two or more hours of homework, every hour of the day is completely eaten up. Working after school is also an exhausting option for high schoolers with the long school days of the four-day week.
Pros
As I mentioned before, the four-day model has been used mostly in rural schools — that is, schools that don’t receive a lot of funding. My school switched to four days to cut spending. One day less of class means one day less of heating the school, fueling buses, feeding students and paying certain staff members. For a school desperate for funding, cutting out a day of the week is a reasonable option.
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In the four-day model, core classes (AKA the ones that require actual thinking) are set in the morning while students’ brains are still fresh. Electives (the ones that don’t demand as much focus) are usually after lunch. As someone who has lived through them, I can testify that the longer days are completely manageable for first-graders and seniors
On these days, the extra hour helps me to trudge through the school day and the long hours of activities I have afterward with some energy left to spare. If one hour keeps me energized throughout the day, then imagine an extra hour on school mornings everyday. For this reason, implementing a later start and end time in high schools across the country will not only benefit students mentally but also
Furthermore, the average school hours for high school students in the US is 7:30am-3pm. This time does not include any extracurricular activities that students take part in. In most cases, students attend the same classes all day, everyday. The school day in the United States should start later in the day because it benefits adolescents' health, increases students' attention in-class, and students
With the extra day off, students have the opportunity to spend more time on any material they are struggling with and use it as an extra day to practice, catch up on their schoolwork, and better themselves academically. Thus, the four-day school week provides students with the extra time and resources needed to understand their lessons thoroughly, resulting in a better educational experience for
This quote helps explain why we should have a four day week. This isn't the only reason though. In addition, not only are tests scores better, but also student attendance. In the article, The Four Day School Week, by Don Kordosky, the author states, “ Attendance in some schools increased 3% as against available instructional hours” (Crosscut: "The Four-day school week: why less really is more").
Because of a four day school week, classes are extended, therefore giving the teachers a longer teaching period. Charlene Heil, a business and technology teacher says, “I actually have been able to get more done. When you have a longer time period you can have more depth of instruction.” The conclusion can be drawn that teachers and students like the four day school week that they did a better job, and their productivity was
Waikato Times says, “If students were to be pampered by a late school start, we would get a rather big shock when, further down the track, our employers would expect us to begin work at 8am.” There are also a large quantity of students who have after school jobs and due to late start late release school days they will not be able to put in as many hours as they would if the school hours were left alone. Students are also involved in sports that require after school practices. School getting out later means that practices will run later too. This would leave students less time to complete homework, not to mention the students who live out of town and have a long drive to get
I think there should be four day school weeks because students most likely want more free time out of school. The school days will end at 4:00 or maybe 4:30 pm because regular school days wouldn’t be enough learning time. This way we could have longer class periods and it’ll help because you’ll get the help you need and work will be handed in on time. Every student has missing work, longer school days help you get some of it all in and grades will be up. Plus, maybe students could do a little work on the day that they won’t have school.
They need time to grade exams and finalize grades from the previous semester, and they only have a short break between school years (Towler). By the time they do this, they might have less than a week to prepare themselves, their lessons, and their rooms (Towler). This is not an adequate amount of time for the teachers and it could impact students learning as well (Towler). Teachers also might have a hard time collaborating with each other because many of them are on different tracks (Towler). Students on different tracks might be learning completely different, or maybe even opposite lessons due to lack of collaboration between their teachers (Towler).
Implementing Four-Day School Weeks A student spends approximately six hours per day at school, customarily five days per week, not including any sort of extracurricular activities. Students frequently complain about having to go to school for so much time, and not getting much time off. Others could argue that six hours a day and five days a week is necessary to learn all one needs to learn in a school week, this is not necessarily true. However, a school should compensate for lost time by adding time to the end of another day that week if they found this to be an issue.
When there is no encouragement, the teenagers often don’t show up to school. The lack of effort correlates to teachers because it could dispirit them from doing work they want to assign in class. Changing to a four day school week can give additional benefits to all parties involved including students, teachers, and the school settings. If a four-day school week was implemented in American school districts, the performance plus achievement for students will increase along with a higher attendance.
There are 24 hours in a day, 8 of those hours belong to school. From the moment when a student wakes up, they begin to prepare for school then go to school, most schools start around 8:00-9:00 am, so most students get up 1-2 hours earlier to get ready. Students need at least 8-9 hours of sleep to be able to function. With students having after school activities that take up around 2 hours, students are exhausted and when they get home all the want to do is relax, but some of them have responsibilities that they have to do, which gives them less time to relax from a long day of school. On top of having homework students end up staying up late getting all their work done, which cause them to be less focus the next day not allowing the
According to the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes public understanding of sleep and sleep disorders, starting school later is an adequate way for students to have a better memory, behavior, attention, mood, and executive function. The National Sleep Foundation states “, A National Sleep Foundation poll reported that 28% of teenagers have fallen asleep in class at least once due to lack of sleep. Negative effects of sleep loss include impairments in mood, attention, memory, behavior and executive function… increase in caffeine use… sleep deprived-teens at higher risk of car accidents.” This means that by just adjusting the time by an hour students are more aware of their surroundings, more focused on what they’re learning, have a better mood, and executive function, and it reduces the amount of sugary snacks they have eat or drink to stay awake.
Four-day school weeks have the capability to change student lives. Every school should invest in the four-day school week plan. Implementing this routine would allow teachers more time to teach and give students the option to do their homework during class, in turn creating student success. All of these factors would help to enhance student and faculty life, while promoting success in the classroom. Having a school system run on a four-day rotation would increase their success by offering more opportunities for lesson and work time.
To keep schools running 5 days a week is such a high cost that really isn’t affordable. This causes budget cuts and that makes for a lower quality learning experience”. That shows just by shorting the hours and days students go to school makes a big impact in the amount of money being saved. To add on to why schools should be shorter is the amount of sleep students get a day. Have you ever thought about how much sleep your child is getting or in better words how much sleep is your child missing.
“ In the 4-day school week schedule, the district adds 40 or so minutes to make up for the time lost on the traditional 5th day. Some school districts have reported saving over 1 million dollars on utilities, busing, and labor costs.” Saving money is a huge plus for most school