Four-day week makes the grade in Idaho

BONNERS FERRY – As you might imagine, the students don’t complain much about the four-day week in the Boundary County School District.

Adults don’t complain much either, and the experiment has been dubbed a success since it started two years ago to save money.

“It’s way better. You go to school an extra hour, but you don’t go an extra day,” said Ryan Wilson, 14, a freshman at Bonners Ferry High School.

“The extra hour is a small price to pay for extra time off,” said Emily Sukenik, 17, a senior. “There’s a lot more time with your friends, too.”

The rural school district along the Canadian border covers 1,277 square miles, and has 1,650 students. Two-thirds are educated in Bonners Ferry, the rest in outlying schools.

The idea was first raised in 2004, when the district needed to trim $185,000 from its local levy budget of $799,700. Most of the district’s $9.9 million budget comes from other sources.

After much discussion, some of it heated, the school board decided it could save money simply by cutting back to four days per week. The savings come in reduced utility costs on school buildings, plus pay for bus drivers, custodians, secretaries and other staff, superintendent Don Bartling said.

Pay for teachers was not affected, and no academic programs were cut, he said.

The school day is one hour and 15 minutes longer, running from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., to ensure that students receive the amount of classroom time required by state law, Bartling said.

Many extracurricular activities, such as sports, were moved to Friday, resulting in less lost classroom time for students, Bartling said.

The four-day week has its origins in the energy crisis of the 1970s, which drove up costs of heating and transportation, prompting some rural districts to cut one day of school.

The concept has survived, mostly in small, rural districts. It is most popular in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oregon, Arizona, Louisiana and Utah. Schools in Orofino, Idaho, also use a four-day week.

Luci Willits, spokeswoman for the Idaho State Board of Education, said the policy-making panel does not have a problem with four-day weeks.

With travel distances for sports teams so great in Idaho, having the Friday as a full travel day is an improvement, she said.

When the concept was first raised in Bonners Ferry, it polarized the community, Bartling said. The biggest issues were child care for working parents; the potential for at-risk students to fail; and whether a longer school day tired students, Bartling said.

The superintendent said he initially opposed the four-day week, in part because he worried that idle students would get in trouble on Fridays. He has met with law enforcement officers, and there has been no increase in vandalism or other crimes, Bartling said.

Now in its second school year, the concept is widely accepted, he said.

“Approximately 70 percent of our patrons are in favor of the four-day week,” Bartling said.

The issue will come up again this spring when the school district conducts a survey of parents and students to determine if they like the change.

Bartling said the school board will have to authorize a continuation.

To help working parents, the district has established a day care program in the middle school where children can spend Fridays, Bartling said. For some parents, having kids in school until 4 p.m. rather than 3 p.m. actually cut their day-care needs, he said.

The four-day week also produced higher attendance. Two years ago, attendance averaged 89 percent of students, about normal for a rural district where kids sometimes ride the bus for an hour to get to class, Bartling said.

Last year attendance rose to 94.8 percent, bringing in $160,000 more to the district because the state of Idaho pays school districts based on average daily attendance, he said.

Academic performance was so good that the district this year for the first time met all 41 federal benchmarks tested by the No Child Left Behind Act.

The four-day week also caused student discipline problems to decline, because students did not have as much free time during the school day to get in trouble, he said.

High school vice president and athletics director Ted Reynolds said increased vandalism and juvenile delinquency did not materialize.

Athletic team practices now start at 4:30 p.m. and end about 6:30 p.m., with everything moved back an hour, Reynolds said.

“We have a high percentage of students who do extracurricular activities,” Reynolds said.

“We try to schedule as much as we can on Fridays. And lots of kids go out and get jobs.”