No one likes to have school for five days straight with no break, but if you were to move to Colorado that all would change.

Colorado school weeks are being changed to a total of four school days with an new idea; no school Monday. Now don’t get me wrong, four-day weeks with a 3-day weekend sounds great, but that doesn’t mean they have school less than the average student. A regular school day for schools with four-day weeks run from 8am until 4pm!

The idea of four-day school weeks was initially just a Colorado school district trend, until other districts wanted to adopt the four-day week. As of May 2019, nearly 560 districts in 25 different states had adopted the four-day week. Currently Colorado has a total of 60% of their school districts with four-day school weeks.

Students who have never had an opportunity to go and attend schools in session four days a week think of a four-day school week as something amazing, but is this change in the right or wrong direction for American schools?

Let’s begin with pros of school districts switching to four-day weeks. The change would include one extra day off for students and staff every week. Many students and parents say students are thriving as a result for having a four-day week. Four-day weeks can be an incentive for teachers wanting to teach at those district schools not looking to work five days a week, every week. Another positive for districts cutting the five-day school weeks down to four days a week is that there is a very large role this plays in the school district’s economy. The amount of money school districts can save from one less school day a week can add up to millions of dollars when accounting for not having to pay for busing, utilities and most important, staffing.

Negatives to switching to four-day weeks include longer school days, salaries being less accounting for one less work day a week, and once a district has switched to four-day week there’s no going back. To account for time students miss, school days last a total of 8 hours beginning at 8am, and concluding at 4pm.

While longer school days sound like a bad thing to most people, students who had a four-day week schedule for their first year were interviewed and their responses were a surprise to me. One student quote stood out, he was asked how the transition from five days a week school to a four-day week affected him, he then explained, “It was hard, but are we in a better place? Absolutely,”

The quote came as a complete surprise to me. More prevalent negatives for switching to a four-day week is in fact the teacher’s salary, but it comes with the incentive of having a three-day weekend every weekend.

In conclusion, I would only ask whoever is reading to think to themselves. Would you prefer to have a four day week for every week or, would you prefer to continue to stay on a five days a week schedule with shorter days?