4 Day School Week

Education
1

Our children are forced to go to school, 5 days a week, 6.5 hours a day. There is no time for appointments with doctors, dentists, therapists, optometrists because school hours are the same as doctor office hours.

Districts can require doctors notes. OSPI, the primary agency charged with overseeing public K–12 education in Washington state does not agree with requesting doctors notes for excusing absences as there are barriers for many that can prevent access to doctors. Still our districts choose to put this strain on families.

Maybe if you are lucky, you can manage to get an appointment towards the end of the day and only have to pick your child up an hour early. But in our school district, if you arrive an hour late or leave an hour early, that is considered a half day absence.

Schools are continuing to become more strict on attendance, and what an absence is. Excused or unexcused, if you reach a certain number of either then you will be in trouble. Your child can be considered truant even with excused absences. Even if you have a note from the doctors.

These are our children. Their safety, their health, quality family time should be everyone’s main priorities. There aren’t enough hours in the day to nurture our kids and make sure they receive the care they need when the school system has set us up to fail.

Attendance policies either need to change, or the hours our schools have need to change. There is not enough flexibility or wiggle room to work around what we have now.

If we implemented a 4 day school week, there is one day every week that we can use for the important things. For going to medical appointments, for mental health, for spending more time together with our children before they grow up and we grow old.

I know there are some counties that have gone with a 4 day week, and the results are positive. Students are less likely to miss school, are able to get better sleep, an over-all better work/life balance for teachers and students.

Our school systems in America need an overhaul. Our students are struggling. Our children are tired and overworked. There is more to life than work and school. We deserve to experience it.

4 Likes
2

I really do hope you understand that things are not as bad as you are making them sound…

6.5 Hours in School is not the same as the Four Day In School at 7:00 am, and not out til 4 or 4:30 pm…

And as you said, you can get Doctors Excuses, for Everything…

If all you want is More Time with your child, take away the Game Box, TV, and other distractions, all of a sudden you’ll have Too Much time with them…

But you’re right, there’s much more to life than Work an School, there’s a Poor Work Ethic, Weak Paycheck, Second Job, Rent instead of Mortgage, walking or bicycling instead of Car, and all sorts of other distractions to keep them from, well having time to do that Idle Hands thing…

4

No! Our children are undereducated as it is. Other countries, especially in Asia, have longer school hours than we do and these children are way ahead of American children. We need better quality education but NOT less time in the classroom.

5

As a teacher I am in full support of this! I would say that a 4 day school week for the students and prep day for teachers would be amazing! We NEVER have enough time to prep for quality learning time within our contact time. I take work home or stay late just to plan, and I’m not getting paid for all that work and I’m exhausted. If we did a 4 day school week for the students, and 5 day work week for the teachers, I feel that would be so beneficial for the students in so many ways. Our students deserve more of a break, 3 days to relax, play, spend time with family, etc. I understand the concern of less time in the classroom not being ideal, however, I see this actually helping our students because teachers would feel less burnt out and that is where I see quality education really blossoming. Students deserve the best teachers and teachers deserve support so they can be the best for their students.