SD schools cut costs with 4-day week

Associated Press

IRENE, S.D.

When the nearly 300 students of the Irene-Wakonda School District returned to school this week, they found a lot of old friends, teachers and familiar routines awaiting them. But one thing was missing: Friday classes.

This district in the rolling farmland of southeastern South Dakota is among the latest to adopt a four-day school week as the best option for reducing costs and dealing with state budget cuts to education.

“It got down to monetary reasons more than anything else,” Superintendent Larry Johnke said. The $50,000 savings will preserve a vocational-education program that would have been scrapped.

The four-day week is an increasingly visible example of the impact of state budget problems on rural education. This fall, fully one-fourth of South Dakota’s districts will have moved to some form of the abbreviated schedule. Only Colorado and Wyoming have a larger proportion of schools using a shortened week. According to one study, more than 120 school districts in 20 states use four-day weeks.

The schools insist that reducing class time is better than the alternatives and can be done without sacrificing academic performance. Not all parents are convinced.

The downsizing comes as schools in some larger cities are moving in the opposite direction. In Chicago, officials hope to add school days so students will learn more and have better employment prospects.

Irene-Wakonda’s predicament is compounded by declines in population and enrollment. The two towns, which are eight miles apart, combined their school districts in 2007 to save money. Wakonda got the elementary school and Irene the middle and high schools. Farming is the largest share of their economies.

Johnke said the district will add 30 minutes to each day and shorten the lunch break to provide more class time Monday through Thursday. In elementary school, recess and physical-education classes will be shortened.

The changes won’t entirely make up for losing Friday, Johnke said, but the district will still exceed the state’s minimum standard for class time and will teach all the required material.