Rich approves 4-day school week

Rich School District received the thumbs up on its request for a four-day school week.

The State Board of Education unanimously approved the district's petition to hold school Monday through Thursday to maximize time spent in instruction. The OK runs three years beginning next fall, and the district must report annually on the program.

"We hope this is a great success because I think (there are) many rural districts who could use this," board member Debra Roberts said.

State law requires students to attend school at least 990 hours and 180 days a year. But it also allows the Board to waive rules hindering schools from accomplishing its mission, the State Office of Education reports.

The state found in the early 1990s that letting districts just comply with the 990 hours rule only resulted in shorter school years and state concerns about whether students were getting enough learning days in. But in 1997, it allowed some small, southern Utah schools to pilot a four-day week. The idea behind the four-year pilot was to keep the school week free of activities, reserving them instead for Thursday nights, Fridays and Saturdays to prevent time away from school on long bus rides to and from competition.

But an evaluation found that activities still crept into the school week, and that the change had no effect on student achievement or energy or transportation expenses, according to documents provided by the State Office of Education. The evaluation also recommended Utah schools maximize learning time, "best accomplished by a traditional five-day school week," and that the "use of a true four-day school week should be very limited."

Rich School District had implemented a popular four-day week in all four of its schools in the 1992-93 school year, and wants to try it again.

Right now, teachers who double as coaches are called out of class, as are a big chunk of students, to take long bus rides to the nearest small school — often in faraway towns — for athletic competition, Superintendent Dale Lamborn said. The district then must get substitutes to teach, sometimes, a half-full class.

"We're just trying to increase the academic learning time with all teachers present," Lamborn said.

The district plans to add time to the school day and offer more than 1,000 hours of annual instruction, Lamborn said. The district will have to work with schools it competes with to work out a schedule that keeps games outside of the school week. It also will have to set next year's academic calendar.

"This was a first step, giving us a way to get the go ahead (so we can) examine it," Lamborn said. "We will go back to the district, and if we can't make it work, we won't (implement) it."

The district hopes the change also will cut by 20 percent the time spent busing students to and from school, decrease absences for doctor's appointments and the like, and ultimately, save money.

The board and district will create a written agreement regarding those goals, Director of School Law and Legislation Carol Lear said.

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