Abstract
The four-day school week is a concept that has been utilized in rural schools for decades to respond to budgetary shortfalls. There has been little peer-reviewed research on the four-day school week that has focused on the perception of parents who live in school districts that have recently switched to the four-day model. This study collects data from 584 parents in three rural Missouri school districts that have transitioned to the four-day school week within the last year. Quantitative statistical analysis identifies significant differences in the perceptions of parents classified by the age of children, special education identification, and free and reduced lunch status. Strong parental support for the four-day school week was identified in all demographic areas investigated; however, families with only elementary aged children and families with students receiving special education services were less supportive than other groups.
Highlights
Rural schools in the United States face a variety of challenges
Three independent rural public school districts participated in the study; all three schools were nearing the end of the first year of usage of a four-day school week
In items 1, 2, and 3, between 73% and 86% of the families agreed the four-day week had a positive impact on their family, their children preferred this new model, and children were as successful as their previous experience in the fiveday school week
Summary
Rural schools in the United States face a variety of challenges. In addition to financial stresses facing many rural schools, the three most commonly cited challenges of rural education relate to the recruitment, retention (Monk, 2007), and training of high quality teachers (Parsley & Barton, 2015). Nationally the move toward four-day school weeks has been driven mainly in small rural, and often isolated, school districts (Heyward, 2018). The number of rural schools utilizing the four-day school week is growing. Most of the existing research on the four-day school week has been conducted by state departments of education or individual school districts. In Colorado, more than half of the state's public school districts follow a four-day school week (French, 2017). A study completed by the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States, determined the maximum financial savings experienced by a school district implementing the four-day school week was just over five percent (Griffith, 2011), savings have typically been less (Rosenberg, 2015)
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