Survey says: 83% interested in 4-day week

Editor’s note: This is part one of two about Clarke Community School’s discussion about a four-day school week.

Student learning time. Staff hours. Teacher recruitment and retention. Learning efficiency. Bussing. Food insecurity. Language challenges. All of these and more were topics of discussion brought up during a workshop with the Clarke Community School Board of Education and school administrators as the former look into the possibility of switching from a five-day school week to four.

At a Dec. 17 work session, the school board and administrative staff heard from Saydel Superintendent Todd Martin, Human Resources and Director of Programs and Services Alex Stubbers, School Board members Gary Christensen and Michael Mortensen, and Cardinal CSD Superintendent James Craig, as both schools shared their experiences with making the change to a shorter week.

From 5 to 4

At Saydel, Martin explained they began looking into the change three years prior to the four-day week implementation for the 2024-25 school year with two main focuses - teacher retention and recruitment and the overall wellness of their school.

In the case of teachers, Saydel was seeing 30% of its certified staff leave the district for other schools in the Des Moines metro each year.

“Teacher burnout is real… the teacher shortage is real,” Stubbers said. He said their staff seemed to be at their best during COVID, when they had extra planning time.

When they switched to a four-day school week, Saydel reduced their 30% leave rate down to 24% at the end of the first year, and further down to 15% at the end of last year. They also saw an increase in the pool size of applicants for open teaching positions.

During their research phase, which included many community forums and surveys with stakeholders, Martin said Saydel quickly realized the wellness of their staff and students was another piece of the puzzle that would be positively impacted by the change.

“The most important factor that we have is a well-prepared teacher that’s functioning at their best every single day,” Martin said, stating the extra day each week allows their teachers more time to lesson plan and improve their professional development.

Cardinal experienced similar issues to Saydel with retention and recruitment. Craig said prior to making the switch for the 2022-23 school year, they were replacing about 20-25% of their staff each year. Now, it is under 10%.

“The number one concern teachers say to me is - we don’t have enough planning time,” Clarke Community School Board member Dr. Ben Hicks said.

Both schools also saw large decreases in the amount of students who were open-enrolling out of their districts as well as a decrease in the number of absences for staff and students.

Community support

In early December, Clarke Schools sent out an informal survey to parents, students, staff and the community to gauge responses to a four-day school week. Clarke Communications Director Becca Kedley presented the results to the board, many of whom noted their surprise at the amount of positive responses – 83% of respondents said they would be interested in a four-day school week.

At Saydel, Martin said initial support from the community had 67% positivity with the decision to switch and after the first year came back at 84-86%. At Cardinal, the initial support was 75% and is now at about 83%.

Compiling the written responses, the most commonly mentioned benefits included an improved work-life balance for all, mental health benefits, Improved attendance, staff recruitment and retention, longer weekends and more focused instructional time. The most common concerns included childcare availability and costs, food insecurity, longer days resulting in student fatigue, impact on extracurriculars and the impact on students who rely on school. With questions about a four-day week, many responses were about what day off, length of days, length of school year and overall uncertainty.

Kedley did caution the survey had been open to the public and as people didn’t have to sign in, some could have theoretically taken the survey more than once.

Day off, length of day and calendar year

For their day off, Saydel went with Fridays. Martin said that was what the Saydel community had preferred, but the school was open to changing that day in the future if the community communicated that need. Two Fridays a month at Saydel are used for professional development days with teacher presence required. After the professional development portion of the day, the teachers then have the rest of the day to grade and lesson plan. Saydel does have students on some Fridays throughout the year, such as Homecoming Day.

Cardinal opted for Mondays off, which Craig said gives families that extra day to be back from a weekend and get ready for the rest of the week. He also pointed out that when a federal holiday falls on a Monday, you then have to take that day off and have class on Friday anyway to make up the time; neighboring school districts Murray and East Union take Mondays off.

A shorter school week saw a reduction in the number of student and staff days at both schools.

Student days at Saydel decreased from approximately 192 days to 154 in an eight hour 45 minute day, while Cardinal went from about 180 to 150 with an eight hour 40 minute day; both schools meet the state requirement of 1,080 hours. Staff days at Saydel are down to about 179 days with administrators and similar ranging from 220-260 with Cardinal staff days at 175 and similar for administration. Both schools have staggered start and stop times.

At Clarke, the number of student days for the 2025-26 school year is 168 days, staff days 177 and teacher days 191. All three schools started Aug. 25, with their last day currently scheduled as May. 28 for Clarke, May 27 for Cardinal and June 4 for Saydel.

Martin and Stubbers both cautioned that with their students going less days, it really drives home the necessity for attendance and being at 100% at all times.

“We need our teachers here, we need them in attendance, we need the kids in attendance so we’re maximizing this time,” Stubbers said.

An issue noted by Clarke Elementary Principal Dr. Kevin Schlomer was how Clarke Preschool currently goes to school four days a week, with teachers using their fifth day as prep time that isn’t built into a regular day. If that fifth day a week came off, he didn’t know how he would get that time back for them.

Learning time

A concern raised by several on the Clarke side dealt with the ramifications of having one less day of learning time, especially for special education, EL (English Leaner) and dual language students.

For special education students, Martin noted that academics are important but the hours in the day are longer to make up for any missed learning time on that fifth day.

“Our whole philosophy was, if we are at our best for four days, teachers teaching at the very highest level… then we will out perform the five-day week,” Martin said, adding those special education teachers now had more time to work on IEPs and plan with other teachers. “That’s exactly what happened… You do have to think differently – each minute, how important that is. But proper planning time, preparation, development, all snowballs into teachers performing at a much higher level and increased student achievement. Again we’re very proud of that, proud of the growth we made.”

Stubbers echoed Martin’s special education sentiments for EL learners, in that the teachers have more time to prepare their interventions and collaborate with teachers. He said while they still have some EL students who are language-deficient, they are growing at a rate faster than they’ve seen before.

However, as Clarke Director of Special Education and Student Services Jen Adams-Potter later pointed out, both Cardinal and Saydel have significantly lower EL and reduced lunch student populations than Clarke does.

“We can’t change the way the brain learns language… exposure and time hearing language matter. That’s how we learn,” Adams-Potter said.

Clarke Middle School Principal Dr. Sarah Kelly brought up the needs for students in the elementary dual language program in addition to EL students.

“Learning a second language over age 8, they need more immersion than anything else,” she said. “They’re missing that fifth day of immersion in both languages.”

Both Martin and Craig reported their schools had seen overall progress in student achievement, and that is something they continue to monitor closely and promote the growth of, circling back to the necessity of everyone performing at their best.

“Our job is to continue to grow that, using the structures in a four-day,” Martin said.

Schlomer reiterated that notion later on in the work session.

“I don’t think it’s the change in the days that makes the difference… we [make] sure that every minute counts and set up the expectation of this is how it’s gonna work,” he said.

Clarke Director of Teaching & Learning Dr. Stephanie Brown agreed the expectations for teachers would need to be clearly outlined.

“... every minute is going to be instructional time and figure out how to make that a priority,” she said.

“If we were going to go with this, things are just going to be much different in a lot of aspects, and everybody has to understand that going into it fully and clearly,” Clarke Superintendent Kurt DeVore said. “You’ve got to be 100% every single one of those four days.”