Four days?

It is not set in stone, but with the Legislature considering more austerity days for some Commonwealth employees, and reduced budgets for many of its agencies, PSS may at some point be looking at a four-day school week. Do I hear loud yeas and hoorays from our students out there in Readerville? Hold on there, boys and girls. The week may get shortened, but the hours per day will be lengthened. A good thing or a bad thing?

I ran this question by a few students the other day—all high schoolers—and they uniformly thought the longer school day might be worth it, i.e., having a new standard three-day weekend. I can understand that. Most adults live for those kinds of mini-vacations, so why would not the students as well. So then, what are the upsides and downsides of a four-day school week should it indeed ever be implemented.
[B] Upsides:[/B] With CUC costs so high and other peripheral costs cutting into an almost obscenely low PSS budget, a four-day week would seem a great idea. It would reduce PSS costs significantly. Students would, according to my totally unscientific and infinitesimal survey, love the four-day plan. Parents? Parents at first blush would probably love it, too. Students would still be getting out of school earlier than would their parents from their jobs, and so little disruption is anticipated overall in that area. And how about teachers and PSS admin-staff? It would appear on the surface that it would work for them as it would for the students. So let’s hear it for the shorter workweek and the new mini-vacation school schedule. Hooray! Or…
[B] Downsides:[/B] Are projected costs savings enough to justify such a change? Ummm, maybe no. It would indeed be a sign to our Legislature that the school district was being proactive and perhaps persuade some legislators, not already on board, to perhaps “not” cut PSS anymore than it already has, but even that is iffy. The Legislature is nervous, as is the Executive Branch. Projected collections are low and sparing any agency, even a proactive PSS, is probably not in the cards. Of course that is pure speculation at this point. And the students?

While considering the extra day of fun and frolic, the students I talked with had not given any thought to the long days they would have to endure on the days that school was in session. It is a maxim universally accepted that the tougher subjects, e.g., Hard Sciences, Language Arts, Math, be not taught in the afternoons. Reason? Students are burned up and out by then. Ballroom Dancing maybe, PE, Glass Making, or Culinary Arts; but trying to explain why the “square root of Pi times the cosine of a times b” is somehow fundamental to the progress of Western man is not happening! Not late in the day at any rate. In a four-day schedule the hardcore stuff would likely be squished.

And the parents? This one is iffy. Students would be home at least one of the general workdays of their parents. Would this be a good thing or a bad thing? Younger students would need some kind of care and monitoring on that extra day. Older students, just the monitoring. Well, you can see why it would be an iffy benefit if a benefit at all.

The prime solution of course would be to increase PSS funding and toss out any notion of austerity or fundamental changes in scheduling of school days. In support of this last, I offer the words of Ronald Reagan our former President: “Education is the only industry that can never cost more than it returns to the community.” So, please, legislators, think about it.

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