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District Introduces 4-Day School Week And Gets An 'A' From Teachers And Students

Updated September 6, 2021

In the average student's lifetime, they'll spend about 7,475 hours inside a classroom from their primary years until the end of high school. That totals up to about 311 consecutive 24-hour days spent sitting at a desk while a teacher instructs you. I don't think I need to explain how absolutely crazy that is.

When you really think about it, the majority of our childhood and adolescence is spent stuck inside classrooms. And while this certainly teaches us valuable educational lessons, it also means we spend more time being students than being children.

It's not just children who end up stuck inside classrooms for hours on end every week.

Inside every one of those classrooms is a teacher who spend the majority of their days standing in front of a chalkboard, reciting the same lessons over and over again to usually deeply uncaring students.

And actually, it's even worse for teachers because they've already done their approximately 7,475 hours in a classroom as students. Now they're going to spend the rest of their working adult lives inside one, too.

One Colorado school district has recognized the toll these long classroom hours can have on students and teachers alike.

Unsplash | Element5 Digital

According to Mom.Me, starting this fall, District 27J schools in Adams County will reduce the usual five-day school week into just four days, giving students and faculty Mondays off to properly prepare for the coming school days.

This was largely implemented in an effort to both attract new teachers to the district and keep existing teachers.

A nationwide teacher shortage has led other school districts across the US to implement the same change, although District 27J is the first in a major metropolitan area to do so.

In order to bypass the teacher crisis, the district now hopes to attract potential teachers with its appealing weekly schedule.

Unsplash | NeONBRAND

“We weren't going to compete in the current system,” 27J Schools Superintendent Dr. Chris Fiedler told NBC News. “You just can’t be dead last in funding, last in starting teacher salaries, last in average teacher pay and expect you’ll attract the best folks.”

Without Monday in the school week, the rest of the days have been tweaked slightly to make up for its absence.

Every day will be extended by an extra 40 minutes with middle school and high school days now totaling 8 hours.

I'll be the first to say that slightly longer days sound like a small price to pay for a three-day weekend. Where was this rule when I was dragging my butt out of bed at 6 am every Monday morning in high school?

Unsurprisingly, teachers and students alike are happy with the school week change.

Some teachers have said they plan to use the extra day in their weekend to prep for the school week ahead, while I'm sure students are just happy they'll have one more day to sleep in before having to return to the world of early mornings, text books, and standardized testing.

Of course, there have been some complaints from a few parents.

Unsplash | Sue Zeng

“I don't like it one bit, and I feel like the district didn’t take seriously my worries about child care,” single mom Jessica Lore told NBC News.

In an effort to accomodate for the extra day of child care this change would require, the school district expanded its current child care services to include an all-day option on Mondays for $30. The local Boys and Girls club now offers the same service for $20, and any families who can't afford this option can have their kids cared for for free.

The new 4-day school week is already producing positive results since it was announced.

The Superintendent said they have already seen an increase in teaching applications to the district, even for positions considered to be including "harder vacancies," like special education and secondary math jobs.

Undoubtedly the students have likely shared their enthusiasm for the upcoming change in their school week. And I'm not even remotely bitter that this is all happening after I'm out of school. Nope, definitely not bitter at all.

h/t: Mom.Me

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