As you point out, this would be a major burden for all kinds of people in schools–particularly support staff.

On the plus side it might allow more parents to work 9-5 if their kids were in school 8-6 (say).

While that may be true, it would also mean childcare would need to be found for Fridays. This certainly would make some things much more difficult for parents.

I have recently been looking at ways to reduce energy usage in our school and I reckon we have a fair bit of slack to take up. I remain unconvinced, however, that a change to a 10 hour day would improve our overall efficiency significantly, particularly as UK schools spend more on heating than cooling. With a 10 hour day, the building would need heating into a colder part of the day so the savings would be reduced or lost altogether. I’m not familiar with your local climate so your situation may be different.

I have other problems with the proposed schedule. In particular:

+ It requires your administrative staff to work to the new schedule . Although staff and students may get readjusted breaks to keep their concentration levels up, the same is unlikely to be true for non-teaching staff (aka “support staff” in the UK) who would get the same 1/2hr or 1hr for lunch.

+ I’m not sure that it sends the right message to pupils that a 10 hour day is now the norm. Both our countries have too many people working too many hours. The UK is supposedly one of the worst countries in Europe for work-life balance. If there was a cultural shift towards 10*4, would we end up with people spending their threekends comatose, recovering from their working week?

On the plus side it might allow more parents to work 9-5 if their kids were in school 8-6 (say).

While I don’t think it would be a good idea overall, I do think it’s worthwhile airing these ideas and seeing what democracy does with them.

I guess our schools work differently: I could only speak on personal experience. In my school, full facilities stay powered for a significant amount of time after the end of the school day. The situation may be different in your school, and I cannot speak to that.

It is true that teachers could change methods to correlate with this, but that takes a significantly longer time than it takes for a bill to go into affect. A law is enacted suddenly, with the proposal being for this fall, but teachers take much longer to adapt. Thus, students caught in the interim while teachers caught up (which would take at least 4 years) would struggle to maintain their balance.

While all plans are worth exploring, I want to again underline that this should not happen through state law. Local districts should be thinking about this 1 at a time and talk it over with teachers, students, and parents. That is the only way the solution will work for everything. The fact is that politicians do not understand the day-to-day workings of the classroom, and should not be legislating the classroom on a minute-by-minute basis.

The heating/cooling will not necessarily need to run as late as you mention. At least in my school we have variable zones for heating and cooling so, for example, the gym could remain heated for a basketball game without running the facilities on full. The building does not lose its heat/cool just because the systems shut down. My custodians work second shift until 11pm and the systems shut down at 6pm and resume at 6am.

I don’t agree with your thought that inevitably this leads to students being forced to stay up well past midnight to complete assignments. It suggests to me that instruction would need to change. Teachers would need to re-think their traditional teaching methods to adjust to the new model. Just as other societal changes have influenced pedagogy, I would hope that the building leadership would help teachers adjust to this change while also saving money for the school district. I think that has at least enough positive potential to look into more details of the plan.

If school goes to 6, then the heating/AC would not be turned off at 6. There would be all sorts of after-school activities which would still need to be accommodated, along with service crews. Therefore, the heating and AC would have to stay on till 9pm at least (going by the current 6pm).

Regardless, you completely disregard the main point of the article: it is not possible to sustain current education on a 4-day school week. No matter how much financial sense it makes, it if means students will have to stay up past midnight just to complete a normal nights homework it can not be considered a viable alternative.

You get what you pay for: if schools get paid for less, then less learning will occur.

On another note, I notice you don’t stand behind your words since you don’t leave either a URL or a full name.

You also forget that building heating and cooling systems are turned off at night. Typically, AC and heat drop to uninhabited levels around 6pm or so. At least that is true in my school. The systems do not run during the weekend, so you can assume they would not run on Friday either. That gives you 40 fewer days or so of running either system for 10-12 hours. I don’t know if you would need to extend it on the school attendance days since they typically run until 6:00 as I said. To me it sounds like an idea that might be worth investigating from the educational pedagogy side. The business/financial side makes enough sense to warrant a discussion about what is in the best educational practices for kids.

@Randy: Well than you haven’t been to my school… The recommended amount of homework is 1 hour per class, which quickly adds up. Also, more school time would not mean less homework. Teachers generally just tack on extra homework, regardless of how long each lesson is. As for saving all fun for weekends, boo! I want to fix Habari!

@Carly: Okay, 20% cut on gas. That still doesn’t get around the fact that this plan is logically impossible due to the number of hours in a day…

I agree that politicians shouldn’t mandate anything about what should happen in schools. Teachers should be in control and enact the changes. Politicians should make sure we have good teachers.

BTW, I get scared anytime politicians start mandating ANYTHING about school: 4-day weeks, thermostat “unfreedom.” I prefer when teachers take control and start the grassroots movement. Teachers should start budgeting thermostats and turning off computers. When we stop acting like its daddy’s money, and spend it like its our own wallet…then you might see some positive changes.

Good thinkin’ @arthus!