Proposal from Missouri lawmaker offers 'carrots' for districts to remain on 5-day week

A Missouri lawmaker wants to offer incentives to districts that remain on a five-day school week, an attempt to slow or reverse the shift to shorter weeks.

The number of mostly small and rural districts that have moved to a four-day week, since the option was allowed by state law in 2011, has soared to roughly 170 or 30%.

State Sen. Doug Beck, a Democrat and former school board member from Affton, filed Senate Bill 784, which received a short hearing Wednesday by the Select Committee on Empowering Parents and Children.

In the hearing, Beck noted one popular option for making the switch is to recruit and retain teachers. For example, a district with a lower starting or average teacher salary might be able to recruit teachers by offering the truncated week.

Senate Bill 784 seeks to offset the recruiting advantage by boosting pay for teachers in districts operating on a five-day week.

"This bill is filled with a lot of carrots," Beck said. "There are no sticks."

The proposal calls for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to provide an additional 2% in state aid — based on the amount from the prior year — to those districts, which Beck said must be "used exclusively to improve teacher salaries."

Under the bill, the definition of an annual "school term" or year will be modified to require districts in cities or counties with at least 30,000 residents to have class a minimum of 169 days. The districts that adopt a four-day week must be in session at least 142 days.

Missouri schools are currently required to be in session for 1,044 hours or more a year, which will not change. Currently, districts on a four-day week accomplish that requirement by elongating the school day or school year.

DESE commissioned its first large-scale study about the impact of four-day weeks on student learning. The results, released this month, showed the alternative calendar was neither helpful nor harmful.

"Four days school weeks are popular and seem to have minimal repercussions to learning and teacher retention," Beck said, at the hearing. "However, we live in a big and diverse state and as such, different communities, different districts, have different needs."

The study did not examine the impact of the shorter week on the ability to hire and keep qualified teachers, which can also have an impact on academic achievement.

A documented teacher shortage in Missouri, which intensified during the pandemic, has spurred more districts — and larger ones — to explore the four-day week. The Independence district, with more than 14,000 students, is the largest to switch.

Currently, the decision about switching to a four-day week is made by a school board. However, Beck's bill would require the districts serving cities or counties with more than 30,000 residents to put it on the ballot.

He said that provision "does not prohibit four-day weeks but rather involves the whole community by allowing the people to decide what works best for their neighborhood."

As part of the study, researchers looked at districts that switched prior to the pandemic and noted demographic similarities. They were more likely to be rural, predominately white, and had more students eligible for free or reduced price school meals, a national measure of poverty.

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In the legislative proposal, Beck added an incentive for districts on a five-day week that elect to have a longer school year.

The bill calls for districts in session 175 days or more to be able to start their school year earlier in August. A change in state law a few years ago prohibits districts from starting more than 14 days before the first Monday in September, or Labor Day.

State Sen. Ben Brown, a Republican from Washington, Missouri, questioned how districts who engage in collective bargaining with employees will be able to lengthen the school year. The contracts that result from that process determine how many days teachers and staff must work.

Beck said he was aware of that concern and school districts that want to be in session for 175 days or more will have time to negotiate with teachers before any change is made.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Lawmaker offers incentives for Missouri districts to keep 5-day week