In the past several years, many school districts throughout the nation have shifted towards four-day school weeks, causing conversation about whether all schools should be operating on the four-day system. Hundreds of school systems, many in the western and rural areas of the U.S, have been active participants in the system and even 116 school districts throughout Colorado operate with this system. Many districts use this schedule as a way to save costs, create teacher advantages for positions and recruitment, and motivate students to attend school more frequently. However, others have questioned the effect four-day weeks have on students and their learning as the pandemic continues to display the effects on students missing significant amounts of learning time. Are four-day school weeks reliable for learning and should Doherty High School shift to this learning schedule?
Four-day school weeks have created lots of conversation amongst parents, students, and teachers in the school community. With four-day school weeks, some issues brought up by parents are scheduling issues. Many parents have full-time jobs and wouldn’t be able to take care of their children because of work. But some have countered that argument saying that not having to worry about picking up or taking their children to school one less day of the week would benefit them, having them get to work easier with less rush. Some positive outlooks on the changed schedule would be a cut in spending and budgeting. One less day would significantly help schools save money for lunches, electricity bills, and other things. But most importantly what are the students’ opinions on four-day school weeks?
From all classes at Doherty High School, there were lots of similar, positive opinions on the schedule. Jissell Trevizo, class of 2026 shared, “Honestly I think we would have three-day weekends because not having to worry about seeing everyone on Fridays would be nice.” Junior Quinton Rodriguez said, “We should move to four-day school weeks because the block schedule Mondays get weird and also it gives you more time on the weekends to do all the homework that comes with the block schedule and it’s better for the student body mental and I would want no school on Friday.”
There’s been a flood of similar opinions amongst the classes, but, of course, there are always the counterarguments. One point brought up by freshman Nelah Thompson was that four-day school weeks could make things feel rushed. Thompson said, “It would be alright but four-day school weeks will cluster everything into those four-days it may be overwhelming in those four days because you have to get everything done and we maybe should stay the same but at the same time I don’t think it will hurt to try.” Which does bring up great questions as if Doherty where to shift to this schedule would breaks such as Christmas, summer, and others be shortened?
But some believe the schedule would fix Doherty’s controversial “flip flop” Monday schedule. Sophomore Christian Clark said, “I think they would make the schedule a bit more even because with the flip-flopping Monday’s schedule it kind of mixes things especially for the 5-8th period days and AP classes it’s hard to get everything done in class that you need to on those days so there’s a lot of homework for that, but at the same time it would also limit time in class overall so it would also take time away and I think some teachers would like it and some wouldn’t for some classes like P.E. and AP classes and you need all that time.”
Teachers here at Doherty also expressed their opinions on four day school weeks with Spanish teacher Mrs. Arthur Demor said, “It’s a tough one I think the idea of four-day school weeks is interesting, but that would require a longer school day overall so a lot of times yes I get that extra day off it may not be students get the extra day of teachers probably not get that extra day off would probably be filled up with professional development that why mondays are late start so that would mean that I would still have that extra day for me per say so there’s pro and cons, with that I think it’s a good idea if everybody agrees to the importance of being in school on the days that we do have school.” So overall a four-day school week has brought lots of different opinions amongst the students here at Doherty. With there being both pros and cons to this schedule it is important to emphasize the importance of school and the time we spend learning.
