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Dive Brief:
- The jury is still out on four-day school weeks, but a study released in April recommends that states and school districts avoid reducing time in school, as increased hours in the classroom are generally tied to improved student achievement.
- Researchers at the University of Oregon’s HEDCO Institute for Evidence-Based Educational Practice found that a longer school day or year with more instructional time — paired with efforts to more effectively use that time — may boost academic gains, especially in math.
- States and districts should focus efforts to add hours first on schools with the least time in session, the authors recommended, as adding hours in these settings could yield the greatest returns.
Dive Insight:
The report shows that a 10% or more increase in school time is likely to produce increases in achievement, but the benefit is not as great when lengthening days that are already long. For example, bumping a seven-hour day to eight hours is unlikely to have the same benefit as extending a day from five to six hours.
In one study the report reviewed, for example, a student in the 50th percentile in math moves to between the 54th to the 65th percentile with more time in school.
The study comes as schools’ approaches to instructional time are fluctuating nationwide.
A law signed in West Virginia last month, for example, allows school districts to design academic calendars around instructional hours rather than days, giving them flexibility to move to a four-day school week.
Meanwhile, Louisiana lawmakers are debating a bill that would mandate a five-day school week, with exceptions for districts with the highest performance level and those that were operating on a four-day schedule before the end of last year.
And one Texas district, Liberty Hill Independent School District, is reverting back to mostly five-day school weeks after piloting four-day weeks for part of the 2025-26 school year.
The variations in school calendars nationwide are “raising concerns about equity and long-term academic outcomes,” according to HEDCO.
“As policymakers consider changes to school calendars, it’s critical that decisions are grounded in strong evidence,” said Elizabeth Day, research assistant professor and assistant director of outreach at the HEDCO Institute, in a May 12 statement. “This research shows that, in most cases, more time in school leads to better academic outcomes, especially when that time is well designed and focused on learning.”
In a review of 11 studies last year, the institute found “little evidence” that a four-day school week benefited academic performance, attendance, behavior or graduation rates.
In some instances, the model was shown to lead to decreased achievement in areas such as math and on-time graduation rates. However, results differ between rural and nonrural districts, with four-day school weeks sometimes having positive effects for math scores and graduate rates in rural areas.
“Districts often turn to four-day school weeks to address budget and staffing pressures, but the evidence suggests this change may come at a cost to students,” Day said at the time.
According to a 2023 analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures, 24 states had at least one school district with a four-day school week, representing an increase of over 600% since 1999. The shorter school weeks are more common in small, rural districts, although the option has been on the table more often for larger districts more recently, according to the NCSL analysis.
Budget pressures have further increased post-pandemic, and four-day school weeks have been found to reduce districts’ annual expenditures by 1% to 2% on average, according to an analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Four-day school weeks have also been touted as a way to boost teacher and staff morale and retention.
However, the 2025 analysis of research by NCTQ found that, on average, four-day school weeks did not reduce teacher turnover. Although, NCTQ also found that teachers and administrators think positively of four-day school weeks and consider the scheduling strategy a tool to help with recruitment and retention.
