The purpose of the study was to provide school administrators information about implementation of the four-day school week. Advantages and disadvantages were discussed in addition to reviewing specific areas of cost effectiveness, student achievement, and staff development.Questionnaires were mailed in April, 1984 to sixty-two public school officials throughout the United States representing eight states that operated the four-day school week. Fifty questionnaires were returned yielding an 80.6 percent return.A review of the literature revealed that the four-day school week was a relatively new concept in school scheduling, having been in existence since the early 1970s. The primary reasons for implementing the four-day school during the 1970s were due to overcrowdedness, conserving energy, and reducing overall operating costs.Some of the findings and conclusions based on the analysis of data obtained from the fifty questionnaires follow:Findings1. Colorado is the leading state in the United States which has school districts operating on the four-day school week being followed by New Mexico and Minnesota. Other states reporting experience with the four-day schedule include Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Utah.2. One-hundred percent of the responding schools implementing the four-day schedule were from rural communities with seventy-six percent of the districts having enrollments of less than 1000 students. The majority of school districts consisted of 200 square miles or more in size.3. The non-school day most frequently chosen was evenly divided between Monday and Friday. Schools more concerned about conserving energy chose Monday whereas schools concerned about co-curricular conflicts during the school day chose Fridays. The four school days were commonly extended sixty or ninety minutes to equal the same amount of instructional time as the five-day schedule.4. Although teacher salaries remained the same, cost savings from five to twenty percent in transportation, food service, custodial supplies, and heating costs were realized by implementing the four-day school week.5. Ninety-seven percent of the superintendents indicated that the four-day school week had improved or not affected student achievement during the first year of implementation.Conclusions1. The four-day school week is perceived as being successful in reducing operating costs, maintaining student achievement, reducing student and staff absenteeism, and improving morale of students and faculty.2. The disadvantages of the four-day school week may be the supervision of students in the community on the non-school day and the longer school day for small children.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/180188 |
| Date | 03 June 2011 |
| Creators | Roeth, James E. |
| Contributors | Marconnit, George D. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 4, viii, 152 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds