4 Day School Weeks...Good or Bad

The article that I came across is entitled, Four-Day School Weeks. This article goes over how school districts that adopt a four day school week can save a lot of money. On school district saved $400,000 in one year switching to a four day school week. This is based eliminating or at least majorly cutting back programs on the three days that the students have off. This would cut back on costs for janitors, food preparation and transportation. The studies show that the students do not learn any less because the school day is extended. This gives students an extra day to relax and do projects and teachers more time to make lesson plans and meet with parents. This is all good and well but what about the after school programs? Would they be cut? This includes sports, theater, teams and clubs. Would they even allow the students to continue to participate? Or would the students have to find programs outside of school? What would this do to parents who work? They would have to dish out more money to take care of their younger children. Sure, this lowers the costs for the school district, but it could drastically increase the costs for many families! These families are already paying the taxes to pay for school, so now the school wants to save more money, but make the parents pay more. That just isn't reality for most families. In today's world, both parents usually need to work, and in a single parent home, that single parent HAS to work. I'm all for fewer days of school, but not at the cost of parents dishing out even more unnecessary money. The article also referred to the fact that snow days would account for more and teachers would have to utilize the longer periods. Students already have some classes that last 84minutes long, how much longer should they have to stay in a classroom? It is very difficult to focus for that long. Though the savings for the school district would go towards the students, the benefits do not outweigh the benefits at this point. McREL: Newsroom: What high-quality education research says about four-day school weeks http://www.mcrel.org/Newsroom/hottopicFourDayWeek.asp 2273141943_daf1f66a32.jpg http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:zSH-6sxCkPdufM:http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2088/2273141943_daf1f66a32.jpg