School districts around the nation are looking for new ways to reduce spending, and according to a Oct. 28 Washington Post article, at least 292 school districts nationwide have implemented a four-day school week for the current school year to reduce costs to their school systems after massive budget cuts.

“We felt it would save us about $250,000 per year, which essentially saves five teaching positions at the base salary,” said Phil Minkkinen, superintendent of the Lake Superior School District in Minnesota, a school district that began implementing a four-day school week in the 2010-2011 school year. “The change would also assure that classes that we felt were valuable and important would be preserved.”

Other school districts have announced that they will be moving to a shortened school week for the 2012-2013 school year.

According to a Oct. 31 article from School Transportation News, a website about public school transportation, Marion County, FL will introduce a four-day school week for the 2012-2013 school year, but to compensate for the lost time, each school day will be 75 minutes longer.

MCPS is not considering moving to an abbreviated week as a means of saving money.

“Given the expectations and demands of our schools, less instruction time would be a short-sighted solution,” said Dana Tofig, director of the Dept. of Public Information and Web Services for MCPS. “The move internationally is for students to spend more days in school, not less.”

According to Principal Joan Benz, a shortened school week would directly and negatively affect parents and students.

“It would be a burden for parents because they would have to find childcare for their younger children,” Benz said. “Since the day is longer it would upset after-school activities, student jobs and SSL opportunities.”

Some students however believe that a four-day school week could be beneficial.

“Most of us are already sleep deprived during the week, and sometimes two-day weekends just aren’t enough to recharge the batteries,” sophomore Parsa Moayeri said.

According to a November 2010 article from the National Conference of State Legislatures, many supporters of the four-day school week believe that it has helped improve staff and student motivation and attendance.

According to Minkkinen, the Lake Superior district’s ACT and other standardized test scores went up last year, which Minkkinen feels is an indication that the four-day school week is working well.

“We also saw less absenteeism, fewer discipline referrals, and the teachers have reported that they felt students were more engaged in learning and more focused on their work,” Minkkinen said.

Although MCPS has not needed to adopt a condensed school week, they have made major cuts to the budget.

“There is an impact when you are spending about $1,500 less per student this year than we did just three years ago, but our outstanding staff has done an incredible job maintaining the quality of our schools despite fewer resources,” Tofig said.