Iowa City district to gather feedback about potential shift to four-day-a-week, year-round school

Iowa City school leaders Tuesday floated the idea of pivoting to a four-day-a week, year-round school calendar.

They stressed it was just a discussion, and no action was taken, but Superintendent Matt Degner presented two draft calendars during a school board meeting that showed a plan where school days would generally run Monday through Thursday. The calendar would include extended breaks throughout the year, including several weeks off in the summer.

Degner said the new model could address the "summer slide," or educational losses that occur when children are out of school, and potentially help retain teachers.

During the 30-minute discussion that ensued, several members of the school board spoke in favor of the idea with the caveat that several logistical questions needed to be addressed. Chief among them is the impact of a calendar switch on families who would need to find child care on Fridays.

"We know that we still serve a child-care need in the community, so there would have to be conversations about what would happen during those days and how could we be part of the child-care solution," Degner said.

The district has held "entry-level conversations" with before- and after-school program directors about Friday options for care.

School buildings wouldn't necessarily be closed on Fridays — they could be used for extracurriculars, student academic interventions or other activities — but the altered calendar structure wouldn't account for any new teacher days, Degner said, or extend the school day.

The Cardinal, WACO, Mormon Trail and Moulton-Udell school districts, all situated in rural Iowa communities, already use four-day school weeks. Cardinal, the largest of that list, has about 1,000 students; the Iowa City Community School District has more than 14,500.

The ICCSD school board has shown it isn't against the idea of modifying calendars. The board made Iowa history over the past year by giving students days off for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and the Lunar New Year, a holiday celebrated by people of various Asian cultures.

Degner was named superintendent in January 2021 and has worked in the district since 2013. Moving on from the Tuesday board meeting, he said there's a lot of "homework" to do on the calendar idea, which includes gathering community input.

"We have to ask questions. We have to ask for feedback, knowing, again, why we're doing it ... and what our driver is. If it doesn't accomplish those things by the time we get to the end of this, then we need to pivot in our conversation," Degner said.

Logistics still up in the air, including compliance with state law

Details about calendar dates and state law would need to be worked out should the district move forward with the idea.

That includes figuring out how to comply with a state law that requires schools to apply for permission to operate a year-round school and begin the calendar before Aug. 23. State law requires school districts and accredited nonpublic schools to provide students with either 180 days or 1,080 hours of instructional learning.

According to Iowa law on year-round school, a break between classes can't last more than six weeks, and 10 days of school or the hourly equivalent must take place at least 11 of 12 months in one year. It also says year-round schooling is only permitted up to eighth grade.

The Cardinal school district's recently approved four-day calendar doesn't extend the school year into summer. Instead, it lengthens the school day, making up for the extra minutes lost by the shortened week. Some Mondays when students won't have school will be used for teacher training.

J.P. Claussen, a board member and former ICCSD special education teacher, asked for more information about the impact of the calendar switch on students who qualify for extended school year services.

Overall, Claussen said he is "very supportive of this concept" and thinks it "makes sense for the society" coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

'I think it would be a great opportunity': Four-day school weeks gaining popularity

A 2021 Brookings Institute article said, before the pandemic, 662 school districts used a four-day school week across 24 states; that's an increase of more than 600% since 1999.

Since the pandemic, the estimate is that more than 1,600 school districts nationwide have switched to four-day weeks, according to research published in an academic journal.

The October 2021 research abstract claims to have the "most complete four-day school week dataset to date." Four-day calendars are generally used in rural areas and include longer school days, but fewer of them than the traditional model, according to the research abstract.

"We find adoption of four-day school weeks is often financially motivated and has generally remained a small, rural district phenomenon," the abstract says. It also says there is substantial diversity in calendar structures across the country, "which may help explain differential four-day school week effects on student outcomes across institutional settings in the previous literature."

Ruthina Malone, vice president of the Iowa City school board, said she's "not opposed to us continuing the conversation." The whole reason to explore the idea is related to the "educational benefit to our students," she said, and reduction of the "summer slide."

She asked how the altered calendar would impact teachers' ability to pursue training over the summer and paychecks for staff who are paid hourly.

"As long as we can ensure that we're not short-changing them, I think it would be a great opportunity, mainly for our kids who deal with that educational gap that we've only seen grow," Malone said.

Cleo Krejci covers education for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. You can reach her at ckrejci@press-citizen.com.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Year-round school calendar, 4-day weeks up for discussion in Iowa City