2 more North Texas school districts adopt Monday through Thursday schedule
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Two more North Texas cities are jumping on board the popular idea of a four-day school week.
School districts in Terrell and Anna will adopt the Monday through Thursday schedule for next year.
With more and more North Texas districts announcing plans this week to go to four-day school weeks, we decided to check in with one of the first school districts in the area to adopt it two years ago and see how it's working for them.
With three young children and a full-time job, Lacey Cotten wasn't on board when Quinlan ISD switched to a four-day school week two years ago.
"Yeah, I was definitely apprehensive at first," Cotten said. But she's become a fan since Quinlan ISD's four-day school week includes an option for working parents to send their kids to it's Afterschool Centers on Education program or ACE.
It's federally funded and offers day long activities at no cost to parents.
"I'm able to drop them off early in the morning and before eight and then they're able to stay there till five that day," she said.
Quinlan's superintendent says other rural districts that also adopt Monday through Thursday schedules like Anna and Terrell will need to have some sort of option for parents who can't afford day care.
There's not even a day care center in Quinlan.
"For some of those districts the biggest challenge they're going to see is what are they going to do on Fridays when they have no school?" said Quinlan ISD Superintendent Jeff Irvin.
Irvin says rural districts like his are using four-day school weeks as an incentive to hire teachers and it's working.
"Was this a good decision? Absolutely, absolutely we've seen our staff retention increase and we've seen the level of applicant increase," he said.
He says data shows that student performance hasn't dropped and actually improved at one middle school.
Parents of older students say their kids do more of their school work at home anyway.
"It's all online now, so if he has to do extra work, he can always pull out the computer," said parent Chris Salazar.
More than 40 districts across Texas have opted for four-day school weeks that are a little longer, starting before 8 a.m. and ending after 4 p.m.
But Quinlan's parents and teachers so far seem to be giving their district's experiment with the idea a passing grade.
