After the removal of PLC days last year, students were not given any more two-hour releases on Wednesday, but with these days being removed students were given more days off in turn.
Professional learning days or PLD days started last year giving students a Monday or Friday off almost every month. These days were set up in place of PLC days, allowing teachers to come and work, plan, and improve their teaching while giving students a day to rest. So with these newfound four-day school weeks, some ask the question of whether or not we should have a four-day school week every.
“I feel like a four-day school schedule would be easy for students to catch up on sleep and for teachers to grade,” senior Jackson Kinney said. “I feel like it would have a positive impact on the school.”
Catching up on sleep is one of the great things that can come through implementing a four-day school week, as according to childmind.org, 70% of teens don’t get the sleep they need. By giving students another day off, the school would give students another whole day to get work done.
“I would like a four-day school week, I like weekends,” freshman Allison Smith said. “It would give students more time to get stuff done.”
However, a four-day school week can also come with downfalls, as some parents rely on sending the kids to school five days for food, transportation, and care. The other problem comes with sports and after-school activities, as they have to decide how they should handle practice with a new four-day week.
“I think sports would have longer practices after school,” Kinney said. “And maybe they could come in on Fridays like we do for band or the day that we have off.”
Even with the managing of sports and after school activities being a problem, changing to a four-day school week would also affect the hours that we attend school. Many schools that have already switched to a four-day school week compensate for the loss of a school day with longer school hours. So it would again be up to the school and students to decide if trading an extra day off for longer school days would be worth it.
“I feel like a four-day school week would be beneficial because a longer school day wouldn’t necessarily hurt people and the fact that you get three days off would compensate for that,” senior Palmer Keith said. “I personally want another day off and it would help me with my swim schedule.”
No matter if you have something after school, if you want a longer weekend, or if your parents would force you to go to school for five days, changing to a four-day school week is still a big change, but no matter what students will still be able to rely on a four day week from PLD days.
