The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

June 20, 2009

Districts mull 4-day weeks

Some schools toying with idea

By Tanner Kent

By Tanner Kent

tkent@mankatofreepress.com

This story is (not) news because the four-day school week is (not) sweeping the state.

After the rural MACCRAY School District made regional and national headlines when it switched to a four-day school week for the 2008-09 school year, hundreds of Minnesota districts decided (not) to follow suit.

After MACCRAY’s announcement in 2008, media agencies far and wide began publishing stories touting the four-day week as a possible savior to declining public school budgets.

Earlier this year, when districts across the state were scrambling to slash budgets by as much as 10 percent, school boards began taking notice of the idea that was working so well for tiny MACCRAY, a district of about 700 students in west-central Minnesota.

By spring, the four-day week had gained enough momentum that several boards in this area — from Rochester to Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton to Mankato Area Public Schools — began tabulating potential savings and gauging community support.

But now, it appears the four-day week is not the budget savior schools were hoping for.

According to the Minnesota Department of Education, only two school districts — Blackduck and Ogilvie — have received the state’s approval to follow MACCRAY and begin four-day weeks in the 2009-10 school year.

“With the four-day week, you can’t just throw it on people,” said Pat Goggin, business manager for Le Sueur-Henderson schools.

In this area, LSH was among the most earnest in its consideration.

As part of a $650,000 budget reduction process, LSH forwarded several “innovative” budget-balancing options to the public. Among them were a four-day week, chartering one of its elementary schools and privatizing its bus fleet.

And while the latter two options were pursued — the charter application was recently denied by the state while the School Board recently approved a new bus contract that included the sale of its bus fleet — the district scrapped the idea of a four-day schedule.

Goggin said the measure could have saved about $90,000 per year through reduced transportation costs and operating expenditures. But those savings, Goggin said, would have been off-set by the difficulties that would ensue through additional day care needs, unsupervised children and re-scheduling community as well as extra-curricular events.

In Mankato schools, business manager Jerry Kolander said the district’s savings could have approached $500,000 — but that still would have been only one-sixth of the district’s latest $3 million budget reduction.

Both Goggin and Kolander agreed that moving to a four-day week would require at least a year of planning time and likely another year to evaluate the move.

“It’s a disruption to the community,” Kolander said.

Despite few districts adopting the measure this year, Goggin said the book on four-day weeks is decidedly open. Several state municipal agencies are using the four-day week as well as all government agencies in Utah. Goggin said his district will continue to monitor the issue in the future.

“It’s still something we want to take a look at,” he said.

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