Why We Should Have A 4-Day School Week
Have you ever wanted a four-day school week? This question is very important. I know that kids need more sleep than they get now, because 70% of teens don’t get enough sleep. Having a four-day school week improves kids’ mental health.
Shorter school weeks are beneficial to kids. It has been reported by Science and Literacy that kids who have a shorter school week work better. This is because they get more rest and are less likely to get burned out. Another reason is older kids get less stressed about school work. According to The Guardian, kids’ math scores went up by 7% having a four-day school week.
It is not just beneficial to the students, it helps teachers as well. Teachers that had a four-day week were proven by Science and Literacy to work better and enhance their teaching skills. The four-day week helps because when the teacher has more energy, they will be able to be more productive and help the students focus.
Some cons of having a four-day school week is that in the future most jobs have a five-day work week, so when students graduate and have to get a job, they will not be used to having to work five days a week. One way we can help people transition to a 5-day week is as the grades get higher starting in 11th grade they start to have like two hours a day in the fifth day. Another con is that it impacts working parents. If younger kids have a four-day school week, the parents would have to take a day out of their job to take care of the kids. One thing that would benefit working parents is make child care cheaper, because currently child care is pretty expensive. So if child care prices get lowered I think it would be perfect.
Four-day school weeks make kids have better school work. They work better in school and are less likely to burnout, while teachers have more energy and enhance their teaching skills. I think schools should start implementing this schedule next year and see how it ends up. Latitude could do a three-week trial of this schedule and test it out. If it works, we could do four-day school weeks permanently.
