YES

By: Taylor Rigney

Wouldn’t it be great to enjoy a relaxing three-day weekend every week?  Due to the high cost of fuel and energy, that idea may not just be wishful thinking anymore.  Over 100 school districts in 17 states across the country have adopted a four-day school week in order to conserve money and energy.

A four-day school week would mean eighteen less days each semester that schools wouldn’t have to run buses, resulting in thousands of dollars worth of diesel (which has now skyrocketed to well over $4 a gallon) that schools wouldn’t have to fork over.  This is thousands of dollars that could be put to use for other things like (of course, I have to put a plug in for our drama department) an auditorium for the high school, or maybe the extra money could mean the school could actually afford to supply classrooms with paper.

Axing a day from the school week would also drastically cut down on energy costs.  Just one less day a week for the school to be shut down means 36 extra days a year that lights, air-conditioners, and heaters can be given a rest and turned off.  Let’s face it, Lamar County School District: we’re leaving a pretty big carbon footprint.  What would Al Gore have to say about that?  Once again, the conservation of energy would also save our schools a big chunk of money and make LCSD’s wallet a little bit thicker.

Obviously, cutting a day from the school week means students would have to go to school longer the other four days.  Honestly, though, who wouldn’t be willing to endure school for a couple more hours every day in exchange for a whole other day each week of not having to set foot in the building?  Folks, we’re talking another entire day of sleeping late, vegetating on the couch watching TV for hours, hanging out with friends, oh and, you know, studying and doing volunteer work and productive things like that.  Not to mention, parents of younger students would save a fortune in after-school child-care, since they would essentially be arriving home at the same time as their children.  Another radical idea would be to do away with advisors (and I know it’s mandated by the State, but that doesn’t make it any less pointless).  Getting rid of advisors would give us thirty more minutes of instruction time, and therefore, we wouldn’t have to stay at school as late as we would otherwise.

Schools across the nation that have adopted the four-day  school week have reported higher test scores due to more uninterrupted class time and students who return from their extended weekends refreshed and more eager and willing to learn.

NO

By: Kate Zachary

The conflict of having a four- day school week has become a vast topic for the government and for school boards around the nation. This is such a huge controversy because there are so many pros and cons towards the concept of shortening the school week. I agree with all of the cons of this idea because I do not think a four-day school week is a good decision.

One reason a four-day school week would cause problems is because it would provide a three- day weekend for the students, thus allowing time for the students to forget information they learned the previous week. Also, the much needed summer vacation that we all cherish would be significantly shortened because more days would have to be added to the school year. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be in school for longer hours and more days. Our four classes are already 90 minutes long each and school doesn’t dismiss until 3:40 p.m. each day, let’s not make that longer just so that we can have a longer weekend. Having the longer school day start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. would push everything back much later in the day, such as sports team practice and club meetings, not to mention that is a very long school day, especially for elementary students. Also, these longer school days would cut some very important sleep hours that students need to succeed in school. Studies say that students should have at least eight hours of sleep to truly perform well in school, and a four day school week would incapacitate this because most high school students don’t go to sleep until 10:30 p.m. due to homework and extracurricular activities.

Another reason that a four-day school week is bad is that it will force parents to have to pay for a babysitter or a daycare for the day their children are out of school. This will hinder many young families because in most families both parents work five days or more during the week. Studies also show that seven out of ten children don’t eat dinner with their families because they have homework, sports practice, or other extracurricular activities. If the school and practice times get pushed back later because of a four-day school week, family time at home would become nonexistent.

The last, but most important reason a four-day school week is a bad idea is that all school employees such as, teachers, principals, janitors, school police, crossing guards, and bus drivers will lose a whole day of pay for each week. During these hard times in our economy, no one can afford to lose a day of pay each week. Education is very important and our educators don’t get paid enough already, I don’t think we should take more of their salaries away from them.