Senate, DESE commissioners question if four-day school week in students’ best interest

By Roxie Murphy, Staff Writer
Posted 3/8/23

BELLE — While the Missouri Senate and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) discuss mandatory five-day school weeks, Belle Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham encourages both …

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Senate, DESE commissioners question if four-day school week in students’ best interest

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BELLE — While the Missouri Senate and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) discuss mandatory five-day school weeks, Belle Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham encourages both entities to leave the decision to local boards of education.

“It is important to allow our local school board to make decisions about what is important to our community,” Basham said on March 1. “It all comes down to local control and we don’t want them to take away our school board’s right to local control.”

Local control has encroached on in recent years.

“Legislators made a call to move back the local school start date (around 2019),” Basham said. “To me, that should also be a local decision. I don’t want to see local control being taken away on so many local levels.”

Maries County R-2, with campuses in Belle and Bland, has been participating in the four-day school weeks for nearly 10 years. Basham, who was a teacher in the distinct when the measure was passed, said it was not a decision made lightly. The board of education at the time asked questions, held meetings and emailed districtwide surveys.

“Surveys went out before the board made a decision,” Basham said. “And surveys were sent out for four years after that. They all came back that the community supported that decision. We stopped sending the surveys after five years.”

The movement to four-day school weeks has been largely a rural issue since it began around 15 years ago. The recent addition of a larger, urban school district announcing plans in recent months to move to a four-day week brought the conversation before Missouri legislators and resulted in a St. Louis Senator proposing mandatory five-day weeks.

Basham said the suggested amendment to Senate Bill (SB 4), which is not included in the current bill language, was due in part to the Independence School District — a large, urban school, announcing the 2023-24 school year calendar change.

“Independence School District decided to go to a four day and they have thousands of kids,” Basham said. “They decided it is not just a rural issue.”

Dr. Margie Vandeven, the commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), said on Feb. 23 that every school district that has moved to a four-day week is currently within its rights. However, she and others at the state question whether the move is right for students and if it is being used as the law allows.

“The reality is — currently it is legal for school districts (to go to four-day weeks),” Vandeven said. “In state statute, local boards have full authority to do that.”

Vandeeven said when a local board makes a decision on their calendar they are within their right to move to a four-day week.

“I think we have seen a pretty swift uptick in the number of districts moving to a four-day school week for reasons that the law was not put into place,” she said.

More than 140 of 500 Missouri school districts are estimated to be operating on a four-day week. Vandeven said the law that allowed school districts to make the move was to help assist them financially when it came to transportation costs.

Missouri is not an intent state.

“The intentions and the way the law is written today still doesn’t make that applicable to changing the law,” she said. “But when that was put into place it was at a time when gas prices were very high and they were trying to think of ways to reduce transportation costs for the rural districts. Now it seems to be being used primarily for teacher recruitment and retention strategy.”

Vandeeven said the question from the DESE — is it working for children and their families?

“Communities still need to decide,” she said. “But at a time where we are coming off of a pandemic, when we saw with great certainty how important it is to have high-quality instruction time with our students — when we see many schools across the nation (instruction time needs are increasing),” Vandeven said. “When we see those (instruction hours) condensed into limited days, we want to ask whether the question: is it really, really working for our children? We’ve raised that concern.”

School districts are required to have a minimum of 1,044 hours logged per school year.

“The question is are they spreading those days throughout the school year and getting them at an extended year, or getting extra days at the end?” Vandeeven asked. “While putting extra time at the end of the day may work for high school students and older students it is very hard for elementary students to stay highly engaged after being in school for several hours.”

Vandeeven said she thinks it is worth looking at other options to increase teacher recruitment and retention.

“The Blue Ribbon Commission has been launched by the State Board of Education to talk about the need to increase teachers’ salaries, to better the conditions in schools,” Vandeeven said. “We will be launching that second round very soon to talk about the best ways to retain our teachers because as we all know our teachers are the number one factor. If we are trying to think about what to do as a state, let’s really help our teachers.”

Vandeven said she is not convinced that a four-day school week is the answer to the teacher retention question.

Basham said the reason Maries R-2 not only went to the four-day week but stayed with the schedule was that it benefited everyone.

“We have some kids in dual credit that also work a job,” she said.

Some students are able to enter the workforce into their chosen career path early with the Monday availability. There is a saving in transportation costs to the distinct, though the electricity bill is questionable. While the schedule does encourage more teachers to apply and can be called a recruitment tool, it also gives families more time together. It allows for doctor and other appointments to be made on Mondays so students and teachers aren’t missing school. Vandeven questions if that is enough.

“The decision to return to the five-day structure is in the hands of the General Assembly right now, it is a law that would have to be passed right now,” Vandeven said. “There is an amendment in the Senate right now that talks about some of those things. I think that is why you are hearing more about it and it is getting attention at the Capitol right now. The state board would not be able to do anything about it.”

If Senate Bill 4 is amended to exclude four-day school weeks, Vandeven said she expects DESE commissioners will be asked for insight, but they have yet to make a recommendation.

“We are studying the issue and raising some levels of concern,” Vandeven said.

Vandeven said she has visited with local boards that operate on a four-day week.

“From my understanding, no one has made that decision quickly in their districts,” Vandeven said. “This is a decision that was really worked through with the board members, doing a lot of surveys with community members, talking with families. To me, it really matters what they do on that fifth day.”

Vandeven said if districts are simply closing schools it makes her concerned.

“What are students doing on that fifth day?” she asked. “So many schools are providing various support services.”

Vandeven acknowledged that some of the high school students may be able to take advantage of the extra day off by entering the workforce an additional day, but doesn’t believe that is enough.

“We really should be doing what is best for our students,” she said. “In some communities, there is great access to childcare, there is great access to families staying at home with their children. In some communities, there’s not.”

Vandeven said she has heard more and more people are concerned about the shortened school week.

“From really great teachers to even students I have been speaking with who say they have concerns about it,” Vandeven said. “The teachers’ concerns were more about young students being tirerd by the end of the day. They feel they are losing instructional time, even though the time is there.”

She added that high school students liked the idea of being able to work an additional day, and felt they could see the fatigue in the younger students as well.

“I think it is something that everyone should be paying attention to,” Vandeven said. “I will share this, once you go to a four-day, it is really hard to go back to a five from what the communities have shared. I would not make that decision quickly. I would make sure it is the right decision for communities to do that and always with the children’s best interest in mind.”

She added that as commissioner, she is concerned with students’ social and emotional well-being as well as their academics.

“I don’t know how we get that with less instructional time, even if we are getting hours at the end of the day,” she said. “Spreading that out seems to make much better sense, or a longer school day, rather than putting it at the end of the day. Going more weeks, versus cramming it all into a shorter amount of time.”

Most of the districts surrounding Maries County R-2 have also moved to a four-day school week. Just the schools in the Maries R-2 Conference include Cuba and Steelville. Maries R-1 School District is currently revisiting the discussion.

“In just our school conference, Cuba, Steelville, Viburnum and Bourbon,” Basham said. “Vienna hasn’t made the move yet.”