The Four-Day School Week

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Thousands of Iowa kids now go to school four days a week instead of five. We'll talk with two superintendents who know the pros and cons firsthand on this edition of Iowa Press.

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating more than 50 years on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, September 6th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

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Henderson: More than 1,600 school districts in 24 U.S. states are operating a four-day school week. In neighboring Missouri, nearly a quarter of school districts in that state have a four-day school week. Today we're speaking with two leaders of Iowa school districts who are having four-day weeks for their students and their staff. They are James Craig, he is the Superintendent at Cardinal Community in Eldon. And Dan Maeder, he is a dual Superintendent. He is the Superintendent of Moulton-Udell, which has a four-day week, as well as Davis Community in Bloomfield. Gentlemen, welcome to Iowa Press.

Craig: Thank you, good to be here.

Maeder: Thanks for having us.

Henderson: Joining our conversation is Dave Price of the Gray Television Stations in Iowa and Erin Murphy of the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

Murphy: So, gentlemen, let's start by just kind of understanding you folks and your districts better. James Craig, we'll start with you. Tell us a little bit about your district. Give us a snapshot of what Cardinal School District is like. And how long have you been operating on a four-day school week?

Craig: This is the third year that we've been on the calendar. Cardinal is centralized in Eldon, Iowa. We serve about 1,000 students all in one campus out in the country just north of town.

Murphy: Very good. Dan Maeder?

Maeder: So, I serve two school districts. Davis County we have about 1,200 kids in our pre-K through 12 programs in Bloomfield. And then I also serve at Moulton-Udell and Moulton-Udell has just under 200 kids pre-K through 12. Moulton has been on a four-day school week for the past four years now.

Murphy: And the other school district is not. That district has talked about it. So, you have one district that is on four days and one that is not.

Maeder: That's correct. Yeah, Davis County has studied the four-day week and had a great process and really the bottom line with our community is -- we spoke with our community and wanted to make sure it was the right decision for them and we couldn't get to a consensus to recommend to the board that we went to a four-day week. So, we're still considering it maybe down the road, but not at this time.

Murphy: And that’s a perfect segway, I also wanted to ask each of you, and Dan you can keep going here, why did your district and in your case Moulton-Udell, why did they decide to go to four days?

Maeder: Well, and I wasn't there when we transitioned to a four-day week, but I have heard a lot of the stories. And a lot of it had to do with we knew that it was difficult to hire and retain staff at such a small school out in the middle of the country basically. And so that was one of the motivating factors and that has been a really, really nice way for us at Moulton-Udell to be able to hire and retain high quality staff. And at the time we were also, before the legislation for teacher pay, we were struggling to get folks to come and stay there. The four-day week really helped with that. And we've also found that our families really like it very well in that community.

Murphy: Touching on a few things we're going to get to here. James, why did Cardinal go to four days?

Craig: The teacher recruitment and retention was the biggest issue, like Dan with Moulton-Udell, and building the culture, giving our teachers time besides the change that it would create in the culture. So, the same thing as Moulton-Udell.

Henderson: So, what I hear you saying, that fifth day the teachers use that for getting ready for the next week?

Craig: There are two different things. So, we have professional development on some of the Mondays and some of the Mondays everybody is off. So, teachers have that time that they can use for preparation or family things or medical appointments, whatever they need to take care of for themselves.

Price: Dan, will you talk a little bit about -- and your life is fascinating to me for a million different ways since you're running both places here and you've got one four day and one five day -- what is the response from parents as this transition is happening? You mentioned at Moulton-Udell it started before you got there. As a parent, I'm thinking of a million different logistical things here, child care, everything else. What is the response so far?

Maeder: Well, I think one of the biggest concerns going into it is child care. Folks are used to having a place for the children to go all five days of the week and that's a huge concern. What we've found at Moulton-Udell is that that has really not been a challenge. And what I hear from other schools that have gone through the same process they hear the same thing. Parents I think end up really enjoying it because they get, you get family time, you get more family time, which I think in our world today is something critical that we don't have enough of. And so, I think a lot of our folks are very appreciative of the extra time that the four-day week allows them to be able to have.

Price: James, you mentioned you're in your third year now of this. How have the parents handled this?

Craig: Well, again, I will concur with Dan that it is daycare and child care access is a concern. But we're finding with our parents that they are able to use the providers they use on a regular basis anyway when we're not in session on those other days. So, access is not the issue, but it is a cost to pay for the extra day during those weeks. It's also something that they have not demonstrated they haven't been able to manage. It doesn't mean they can, but we have not heard that that is a cost that the parents can't handle.

Price: And to be clear, sorry to cut you off, neither one of you can provide any kind of child care, anything like that, on the no school day?

Craig: Well, it's not that we can't, but we do not operate a daycare at Cardinal, a full day.

Price: And no need for it either as far as your community goes?

Craig: No, not that we've been told.

Price: Same for you as well?

Maeder: Yeah, that is what my understanding is as well.

Price: Okay.

Henderson: How did you choose which of the four days of the week to meet? James?

Craig: Which day that we --

Henderson: One of you goes Tuesday through Friday, the other one goes Monday through Thursday as I understand it.

Craig: Oh sure. Yes, so for us the Mondays off really a perception thing. For our staff, if you're going to have Friday off, they thought that that would encourage people to use the entire weekend as a three-day weekend like a holiday weekend. With the Monday, you would use the time that you had on the weekend with your family and could use Monday to prep. It's also for our sports schedules, not as busy of a day as Friday generally is. So that factored into the decision as well.

Henderson: And at Moulton-Udell?

Maeder: Well, I can't speak for what they were thinking before I got there, but I do know that our Monday through Thursday schedule works well with our local community college, Indian Hills. They are on a four-day schedule as well and so the alignment for our kids who are taking classes at Indian Hills, which grows, we have more and more kids taking advantage of that, that really, that schedule really lends to those opportunities, increased opportunities there.

Henderson: It may be too soon, but can you tell us what the results of this in terms of student performance are? I'll start with you, James.

Craig: We have not found that the change in calendar has negatively impacted student achievement. In fact, over the last three years our achievement has continued to go up, whether it is the state ISASP test or it's FAST testing intermittently throughout the year. We are continuing to see growth. And we still operate summer school programs and some of those students that struggle during the year and get that extra support are continuing to show growth. So, we have not seen any negative impact.

Henderson: And at Moulton-Udell?

Maeder: There has not been anything significant to report either way at Moulton-Udell. One thing I will say is that our teachers are fresher. They have more energy because of a four-day week. And so, when they're bringing it, they're bringing it each and every day. The most important factor in a kid's education is the quality of instructor in the classroom and that is what we focus on and we believe that has the greatest impact on student achievement.

Murphy: I'm curious to hear -- and Dan, we'll start with you on this -- how do you manage the length of your day versus the length of maybe breaks? And what I'm getting at here is state law requires a school year to have completed so many hours. So, you've taken one day out of each week, now where do those hours go, because as I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, neither of your districts have created a very much longer school day. It's only about half an hour longer, I think, correct me if I'm wrong. So where do those hours accumulate then?

Maeder: Sure. I think the first thing is that not every week is a four-day week. We have to have a certain number of five-day weeks in the school year to get the total number of hours that we need to meet the requirements in code. When we shifted, we added enough five-day weeks and length in the days on all of our days of those four-day weeks. So, we essentially have the same number of instructional hours that we did before we made the transition.

Henderson: And James?

Craig: And our day was extended by 25 minutes and the same thing to meet those requirements.

Murphy: Okay. I'm also curious about extra curriculars. I grew up playing high school sports, my daughter is a theater kid. The after school stuff, is that impacted at all, James? Is that impacted all by this? Can you still have practices and rehearsals and competitions on those off days?

Craig: Absolutely. And our parents have been able to make arrangements for their children to get to class, or I'm sorry, get to those practices. We don't have many students that live near campus anyway. The two-mile minimum to get students, just about everybody lives outside of that anyway. So, they have to travel to school and they're used to that.

Murphy: Dan?

Maeder: Yeah, there has not been any -- it's no different than what we had experienced before. So, it's not been a major incumbrance for anyone to have Fridays off in our case.

Price: We talked a little bit about the child care for families to think about on that fifth day. What about we have a lot of families in our state who frankly don't make a lot of money and so they may rely on free or reduced lunch. Some districts also do breakfast and stuff. That fifth day, has that proven to be a hardship for some of these families? And is there anything that the district has to step in and do? Do you do grab and gos that kids that can take home or how do you districts handle that?

Henderson: We'll start with you, Dan.

Maeder: Well, I'll say this, food insecurity is really what we refer to that as and we have a lot of families in our area of the state in Southern Iowa, we have a lot of folks that qualify for free and reduced lunches, and I'm sure Jamie has the same challenges there. And so that is a huge concern and one of the reasons why Davis County decided to hold off on making that decision because we're not quite sure how that will impact folks there. I've not heard that it has been a major problem at Moulton-Udell if at all. Now, my phone might ring after this interview, we'll see. But to my understanding and to my knowledge it has not been an issue that we're aware of.

Price: And do you do grab and go or anything for that fifth day or do families just do their thing?

Maeder: We do not.

Craig: So, we served over 24,000 meals this summer as part of our summer meal program and I think that directly speaks to the need of our community. We do have a food pantry on campus. There are other food pantries accessible in district and in nearby towns and people take advantage of those. Unfortunately, no matter how much we do it will never be enough to meet the overall needs of our community. But we do the best we can and try to come up with innovative ways to do that.

Murphy: So, for those Mondays that you're off, you kind of guide families to those food pantries?

Craig: If that is what they need, yes. And we send home backpacks on Fridays. So, there are opportunities available.

Henderson: The latest information indicates that you are leading two of the 17 Iowa school districts that have a four-day school week. All of them are smaller. When some superintendent gives you a call, James, what is your advice to them when they say we're thinking about doing this, what should we consider?

Craig: Well, the first thing is that to me when this gets proposed a lot of times it comes with we're going to save money. This is not the case. Not that that's a bad thing. It doesn't necessarily cost more. But transportation you're going to save a little bit because you're only running the routes four or five days. But your food service department is going to lose money because you're only feeding kids 150 days versus 180. And there's no cost savings in between because we made our teachers and our support staff whole in the transition. So, their salaries were whatever they would have made before they're going to make now, which adjusted their hourly rate accordingly because I don't think we're going to get anybody to work for less money, even if it's for less days, because they don't get paid enough to start with. So, the money savings argument is not valid in my opinion. The other thing is that it has to work for you. It has to work for your community. It works very well for the Cardinal community. But you have to go through what steps you need and what conversations you need to have to make sure it will work for you. You can't just up and do it because Cardinal is doing it.

Henderson: So, Dan, if a superintendent calls you, what would be something that you would suggest they think about that they might not think about, about a four-day week?

Maeder: Well, I think I'll echo a lot of what Jamie has said. Every community is different. Every community has different needs and our local communities know what is best for our local communities. And in our case in Davis County, we just weren't ready for that. We're not ready for that four-day week, for whatever reason. So, knowing and understanding your community and what their needs are and what their goals and aspirations are, I think that's critical. I also think it's important that if you're going to, the major things are the daycare, the food insecurities like we mentioned before, and then also the academic achievement. And so, you have to address all of those things when you're studying it and knowing whether or not, what the impact you believe is going to be. And in our case, it was one community that I serve was all in and very supportive of it, the other one wasn't. Great communities, great people, it's just what is right for that community is the most important thing to know and understand.

Henderson: So, as I mentioned, only 17 school districts in Iowa. In the state of Colorado, two-thirds of the districts are four days. Why is it catching on in other states and it really isn't happening here? Do either one of you have an opinion on that?

Craig: I would think it has just been trending. It has been going on in Oregon and Missouri and as you mentioned Colorado and a couple of other states for quite a while now. The Waco school district was the first in Iowa to switch to it and that has been around 10 years. So, it has taken a while to catch on. But I think that's just a trend issue.

Henderson: Was it partly the change in state law, changing the instructional requirement to 1,080 hours instead of a number of days? Is that the reason, Dan?

Maeder: Well, I think that that helped the transition, it helped folks to be able to think about the school week in a different way. But I don't know that it was necessarily a driver because we had that opportunity to go to hours for several years before we really started seeing four days schools in Iowa pop up. I think it has more to do really in Iowa why it is maybe taking a little bit longer is our work ethic is awesome in Iowa. We have hardworking families that believe we should work for five days a week because that's what we do and it just takes us longer to make change in Iowa and there's nothing wrong with that.

Murphy: James do you think that trend is going to continue? Do you think we'll see more and more in Iowa and across the country? Is this a wave that is slowly building? Do you have a thought on that?

Craig: Yeah, I don't know that it's a wave but I know more and more people are considering it. And so, as that continues, I'm sure there will be more that will take advantage of the opportunity.

Henderson: You mentioned teacher pay. Will both of your school districts be able to handle the newly enacted law in terms of salaries for first year teachers and for veteran teachers? We'll start with you, Dan.

Maeder: Well, at Davis County, two different districts, at Davis County we've worked really hard over the last several years to do some things well financially so that the change is not as dramatic as Davis County as we're seeing at Moulton-Udell. So, the school districts that were in better shape financially and closer to those salaries have less of a challenge. I am concerned about our smaller school districts that have had huge jumps and the sustainability of that over time. We've got a lot of teachers in our Moulton-Udell school district that they are paid the same as someone who has been there for five or six years, a new teacher is getting the same as them. And they're wonderful people, they don't want to say anything about that, but it's a challenging -- if someone were to come in and make exactly what you make after you've been there and experienced, it can create some challenges there. But those are all things that we can work through.

Henderson: Are you working through those, James?

Craig: Well, it's the law, so we'll handle it. We're hopeful that the reporting system that drives that funding gets -- we will report differently this year than we did last year because that caused us to not receive all of the funding that we would have received if we would have reported the way that it ended up working out. So, it didn't matter before and then they passed the law and then it mattered. So, we were legal but it didn't translate into that. So, we're hoping we can get a little recoup of all of the errors from last year into next year's dollar amount because that's the amount that we'll carry forward to support the new legislation. So, we're hoping to recoup that, but other than that we'll handle it and teachers deserve to be paid well.

Price: I want to make sort of an awkward transition here. But I'm very curious how you both, what you both were thinking when you saw this latest shooting in this school in Georgia in a smaller community like that. You are responsible for a million different things for our kids in your district and when you get this alert that another one of these awful things has happened, what goes through your mind? And do you immediately think about the safety in your own school?

Henderson: Dan?

Maeder: Absolutely. It's a devastating event, tragic event every time it happens and it does, those alarm bells are going off in our head, in my head anyway, and I'm sure Jamie's as well. You're thinking about have we implemented the right training? Have we implemented all of the safety and security measures that we absolutely can do? And you can't get it perfect. You just do the absolute best you can. I know that we have spent, and our Governor has supported it, improving our school safety posture. But yeah, it's devastating every single time it happens. And we just, we need to improve the safety and security of all of our schools. But we also need to improve the relationships with our students and our families and how we do we communicate with each other? And how do we respect each other? And how do we -- in a world right now where we're pretty divisive in our country, we're seeing that in our schools and there's challenges that we have because of the politics. And we really need to focus on treating each other as good human beings and start with that and hopefully that will make a huge difference. But until then, we'll have to continue to focus on safety and security and continue to improve our posture.

Price: What more do we need to do?

Craig: Well, I would add to what Dan said, we're in the middle of a corn field. So, we don't have police presence right next to us. We do have a school resource officer that is on campus and we appreciate that. Also, there is a task force going on that is having conversations about school safety and security, what we need to do with facilities and different things. And we're very encouraged that they're taking a look at that and encouraging us to create situations where we can use the latest technology, the latest design things, to put better protections in place for our students.

Price: But that stuff costs money.

Craig: It does cost money and I'm sure the legislature will consider how they're going to address that. That is something that when it comes to safety, besides our education, it's the top priority.

Murphy: And I apologize for the clock on this, we've got just a little more than a minute left for such a question on a heavy topic. Have any of those discussions, James, included whether to arm staff, which I know that state legislators have been trying to make efforts to make it easier for schools to do that. Has that discussion taken place in your district?

Craig: We have adopted policy that we will not be arming our staff.

Maeder: I'm going to say it, I've been an administrator a long time, I think that's one of the silliest rules that we've come up with. We need our educators to educate our kids. If we need to put armed folks into school buildings to protect kids, then the state needs to, whoever needs to provide a resource into the building to do that. Schools need to do school work and law enforcement need to be providing the law enforcement services. There's my opinion.

Murphy: James at his district has SRO, school resource officers. Do you?

Maeder: We have a great relationship with our school resource, excuse me, with our law enforcement folks and they can be there in two minutes in Bloomfield. Moulton-Udell is a little different story. We don't have one there. So, we really have to be vigilant ourselves and we do, we have the security measures in place that we think are adequate right now.

Henderson: We have a lot more questions about how schools operate, but we are out of time for this discussion today. Thanks to both of you for being here and sharing your views.

Maeder: Thank you.

Craig: Thank you.

Henderson: You may watch every episode of Iowa Press at iowapbs.org. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching today.

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Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

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The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

Elite Casino Resorts a family run business rooted in Iowa. We believe our employees are part of our family and we strive to improve their quality of life and the quality of lives within the communities we serve.

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Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.

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