This is the 3rd in a 4-part series on 4-day schools in Idaho by Kevin Richert/Idaho Education News. Some 9.1% of Idaho school children attends a school with a four-day week. Today, Kevin looks at cost savings -- or lack thereof -- involved in this experiment:

The four-day school schedule is a policy born of hard times. Not that it has made hard times much better. Nationally, school districts first adopted the schedule in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. The policy grew more popular in the 1970s, during the energy crisis. Then came the Great Recession. The number of Idaho four-day districts went from 10 in 2006-07 to 43 in 2015-16. In many cases, administrators jettisoned classroom days in hopes of stretching scarce dollars. For many districts, the savings turned out to be modest at best/Kevin Richert, Idaho Education News. More here.