Nearly 900 districts in the United States had a shortened four-day school week in 2023. But what are the effects of this growing trend?
The number of schools operating on four-day school weeks has risen nearly 35% in the past four years. During the 2022-2023 academic year, 876 school districts operated on a four-day schedule. While the four-day school week is spreading, it remains a mostly rural phenomenon. Four-day districts typically close school on Fridays or Mondays and lengthen the other four days by an average of 52 minutes. District leaders say that four-day schedules help to cut costs on transportation, operations, and support staff and that they improve teacher recruitment and retention.
Communities that have four-day school weeks are largely supportive, saying that four-day school weeks increase family time and improve student attendance without negatively affecting academics. A study led by the RAND Corporation found that childcare on the day off has not been a major concern because many households in four-day districts have extended family for childcare or at least one adult who works from home.
But the increase of four-day school weeks has occurred with little supporting evidence. My research begins to address this problem. Based on a series of studies, my colleagues and I found the following:
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The four-day school week has a small to medium negative effect on student achievement in districts with less instructional time and in non-rural districts.
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However, rural districts on four-day school weeks show very small differences or no difference in student achievement compared to districts on regular five-day schedules.
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Student attendance is largely the same for students going to four-day schools, and student behavior at school improves slightly.
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The four-day school week offers minimal cost savings.
Data and Analysis
My colleagues and I tested the effects of four-day school weeks using administrative data from the Oklahoma and Oregon State Departments of Education as well as databases from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford. We looked at district school finance, student attendance, disciplinary incidents, and test scores on state and national assessments. The data were from 2008-09 to 2018-19 and included students in grades 3-12.
We estimated the effect of the four-day schedule by comparing changes over time in outcomes of districts (or students) with four-day weeks to simultaneous changes in districts that remained on five-day weeks. These comparisons account for districts’ demographics in different school years. Differences for rural versus non-rural schools and for four-day schools that have varying amounts of instructional time were also examined.
Results
Student Achievement
On average, my colleagues and I consistently found negative effects of four-day school weeks on math and reading test scores for students in grades 3-8. These negative effects ranged from small to medium (-0.02 to -0.07 standard deviations in reading and -0.02 to -0.09 standard deviations in math). Put another way, the largest negative effects translate to approximately one quarter of a year of learning in each subject.
However, as displayed in Figure 1, results depend on the characteristics of the schedule and the district. Negative effects were driven by districts that adopted four-day schedules in non-rural areas (towns and suburbs) and by districts that had school days shorter than about 7.5 hours per day. Districts that adopted four-day weeks in non-rural areas experienced negative effects on student achievement as large as -0.10 standard deviations in reading and -0.08 standard deviations in math, whereas rural districts saw small average effects that were not statistically different from zero.
In Oregon, the four-day schedule had significant negative effects of 0.05 standard deviations in math and 0.03 standard deviations in reading in districts with shorter school days (i.e., less than about 7.5 hours per day). However, four-day districts with longer school days had no significant effect on test scores.
Cost Savings
My study of cost savings in Oklahoma showed that four-day school weeks significantly decreased district per-pupil spending on operations, transportation, and food services, amounting to approximately 2.03 percent of their overall budget, or an overall savings of $82,000 in 2023 dollars. However, as displayed in Figure 2, about one-third of these overall “savings” can be attributed to food service expenditures, which end up being at least partially reimbursed by the federal government (>70% of students at four-day week districts are eligible for free- or reduced-price meals). Over half (~55%) of food services “savings” come from districts’ federal revenue, meaning they are effectively returned to the federal government. So school districts are reducing spending by closer to 1.95% of their budget, or around $68,000.
Student Attendance and Behavior
Across several studies, including one Oklahoma study, we found no evidence that the four-day week affects daily attendance rates. These studies examined Average Daily Attendance (ADA) rates (i.e., the percentage of days students are present at school). Four-day school weeks may have some positive effects on student behavior in school.
By using Oklahoma data, four-day schools showed a 39% decrease in bullying rates and a 31% decrease in fighting rates at school. Importantly, these reductions are larger than the average 7% decrease in time at school and the 18% decrease in days at school on the four-day week schedule. But these improvements in behavior are small in practice. They amount to an average of just 1-2 fewer incidents per high school each year. Readers should also keep in mind that there are challenges to collecting accurate behavioral data from schools.
Policy Questions
Overall, how and where the four-day school week is implemented is what seems to matter for student achievement. But cost savings are minimal, especially after federal reimbursements for school meals are considered. Attendance does not appear to improve, but there is some evidence that student behavior improves slightly.
Key questions about four-day school weeks remain. For example, there is no evidence on teacher recruitment and retention despite school districts citing staffing as a reason for moving to four-day weeks. Moreover, little is known about the effect of four-day school weeks on mental health, post-secondary outcomes, and student and family income.
State legislatures are currently debating whether to allow four-day school weeks and, if so, what restrictions to place on them. In Oklahoma, Senate Bill 441 required school districts to apply for a waiver to operate for fewer than 165 days starting in 2021-22. The bill specifies that schools may obtain a waiver only if they meet or exceed the state average on their School Report Card’s metrics related to student growth, achievement, and postsecondary outcomes. Districts can probably get around such restrictions by holding a virtual day on the fifth school day.
Either way, when districts move to a shortened school week, they may need to ensure that total instructional time is maintained or even increased.
Author Bio
Emily Morton is an Education Policy Researcher at the American Institutes for Research.
