Anita Campbell
County Reporter
Five years ago the Warsaw R-9 School District switched to a four-day week schedule. At the time, the Warsaw School Board cited that the four-day week would help them to attract and retain teachers. Another reason for the four-day week was the savings in transportation.
But, one Missouri senator is proposing that it is time for all schools to return to a five-day school week.
St. Louis County Senator Doug Beck recently proposed the legislation.
According to the Missouri Department of Education, "The 4-day school week law was enacted in 2009, at a time post-recession when schools were looking at all available cost-saving opportunities. Now, 4-day school weeks are more typically being put into place as a teacher recruitment and retention tool, as states across the country face unprecedented workforce challenges.
"Our department is in the early stages of studying how 4-day school weeks impact student learning. In the meantime, we encourage school districts to be thoughtful in how they continue to serve students and families on that fifth day of the week, knowing the importance of high-quality instructional time for students," the department stated on their website.
According to Warsaw R-9 Superintendent Scott Gemes, the decision on the four day school week is up to local school board.
“The selling point of the four-day school week was to help the district attract qualified teachers to the district,” said Gemes. “For the most part the districts that switched to the four-day week did not go back to five days after the switch.”
“It is too late to change to a five-day week this year because school districts are already planning their calendars for next year,” said Gemes. “No one seemed to care when it was just smaller districts going to the four-day week but now that some of the larger school districts are making the move, the legislature has begun to take notice.”
The Independence School District recently voted to go to the four-day schedule for the 2023-2024 school year.
Missouri State Senator Beck of St. Louis County was the lawmaker who proposed adding a mandatory five-day school week amendment into Senate Bill 4 or the ‘Parents Bill of Rights.’ The amendment did not go in the bill, so the Independence School District can continue with their planned four-day school week, which would begin next year.
“This goes completely against local control,” Cole Camp Superintendent Steve Hubbard said of the lawmaker’s idea. “Every school district has a dually elected school board that makes these decisions. This is quite a bit of overreach by the state legislature to come in and take away that control from local school boards.”
According to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state has 144 school districts operating four days a week this academic year, instead of the traditional five-day school week. The shortened learning weeks are used by many rural districts as a teacher recruitment tool.
In the era of workforce shortages, larger districts are catching on – potentially leading to teacher recruitment problems for rural districts. Independence is shifting to a four-day school week. St. Joseph is considering whether to do the same.
During last week’s Missouri Board of Education meeting, President Charlie Shields said he has heard a lot of discussion in the Capitol over the past week about the four-day school week movement.
“I think, rightfully so, there’s a lot of concern. Is that the right thing for students and is there any data that shows that moves us in the direction of greater student achievement,” Shields asked. “I think at this point, there is not that data out there but districts continue to move in that direction.”
The schools with shortened weeks must still fulfill the same number of hours of instruction as schools running five days a week.
Shields, who is a former Missouri Senate President Pro Tem, said the intent of allowing districts to make the switch to four days a week has changed.
“Way back when the school districts were facing a transportation crisis, we were not fully funding the transportation, categorical fuel costs were increasing and the legislature’s response was to move to allow districts to move to a four-day school week, primarily focused on those districts that had really large transportation costs. The idea was that they could do that to solve some of their financial difficulty around transportation. And now, what we’re hearing is that districts are doing that as a teacher and staff recruitment issue. It was done to solve the transportation crisis. It was never envisioned as a teacher recruitment and retention issue,” he said.
In the current state budget year, Missouri fully funded the formula used to bankroll K-12 public education to the tune of $3.56 billion. It fully funded its share of school bus transportation costs by providing a total of $328 million to schools. The state also offered grants this budget cycle to help schools boost teacher pay for new educators and experienced ones.
Legislative bills have been filed this session to increase Missouri’s minimum teacher pay to $38,000 annually over a three-year period. The minimum salary for a teacher with a master’s degree and at least ten years of teacher experience in public schools would increase from $33,000 to $46,000.
Another bill would provide a student loan forgiveness program for students who become teachers in public schools with high needs.
Missouri has about 550 school districts and charter schools.
Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven told the state board Tuesday that it gives her "great pause" to see the number of districts switching to a four-day school week as a strategy to improve teacher recruitment and retention.
"Eventually, if we are a state full of four-day weeks it will no longer be a teacher recruitment and retention strategy and we will have a number of schools operating on a four-day week, which is not typical for the workforce that they are preparing to enter," she said.
Early in the meeting, as part of a legislative update, Vandeven and two members of the state Board of Education questioned the academic impact of the truncated schedule now adopted by 145 — roughly 27% — of districts in Missouri.
Although the four-day week schedule will continue for some schools for the 2023-24 school year, the legislature may bring this up again in future legislation.
