By Brynna Williamson
The Wood County towns of Alba and Golden, Texas may not have a lot of people, but they’ve got guts.
The Alba-Golden Independent School District (AGISD) recently voted to try something new, bold, and burgeoning within the Texas school system: a four-day school week. AGISD voted to try it in February of 2023.
“We’ve just completed our first year of it. We feel that it’s gone well,” explained AGISD Superintendent Shelby Davidson. “We’ve been through it for a full year now; we’re entering into our second year.”
While Davidson was not yet a part of the school system when the decision was made, he says that he still supports the decision today.
Almost Everybody Liked the Idea
Why? Namely because the four-day school week is a strong incentive for teachers and other faculty who may not otherwise be able to stay on at a school with a comparatively smaller budget and resource center.
“They looked at it as hopefully a non-cost (tool): so, you know, when you’ve got limited funds, how do we recruit new staff? We’re all recruiting for staff; we’re competing for staff. So that was a big reason (we chose the four-day school week),” Davidson said.
Statistics show that overwhelming numbers of schools across the country are suffering from a severe lack of teachers, many of whom feel that the stress of the job outweighs the potential for earnings. “A KXAN investigation found a record number of teachers retired or resigned in the 2021-22 school year, many citing low pay and increasing workloads without additional planning time,” writes Christopher Adams from KRQE News.
According to KXAN, nearly 45,000 Texas teachers resigned or retired in the 2021-22 school year alone. And this number is continuing to grow. However, Wood County’s AGISD is finding that the four-day school week is greatly helping both teacher and student mental and emotional health. With the new system, both students and teachers receive Fridays off. Once a month, faculty and staff come in for a “work day.”
“More than 90% of both staff and parents said that they preferred continuing the four-day week, or (that) it really didn’t make a difference either way. So we felt that was a good thing,” said Davidson. “As far as the teachers, the majority of them said they liked it—they felt like that extra day gave them some time to have a true weekend.”
The local community, too, has shown great support for this system.
The Comparisons
However, the system of a four-day school week does bring up some concerns, which Wood County, Texas’ AGISD is working through as we speak.
For instance, as Davidson said, more content learned in a shorter time can prove difficult for some. In addition, a student’s absence weighs more heavily in a four-day system than it would in a traditional system.
Some other school districts have also mentioned a concern for potential learning loss. Learning loss is the theory that the longer a student is away from school, the more difficult it is for them to simply pick up learning where they left off. Superintendents across Texas, and the nation at large, have wondered how this would affect younger children especially.
However, Alba-Golden schools seem to be showing that this is not as much of a problem for a four-day school week system as some would think. “The younger the kids are, you know, they get tired at the end of the day. So you have to try to figure out ways to compensate for that,” said Davidson contemplatively. “But it didn’t seem to be a huge, huge concern (among students and families).”
Davidson also said that gains in score results show that Alba-Golden ISD hasn’t seen evidence of learning loss.
Although Davidson, and the AGISD board, were afraid that the four-day school week may prove a problem for parents who work outside the home, they haven’t received complaints so far. In fact, despite the board’s initial concern that parents wouldn’t be able to find daycare or other childcare on Fridays when the school is closed, Davidson said that “when we actually gave an opportunity for people to comment on issues and all, those were not the main issues that people addressed.”
In fact, parents let the board know that they “enjoyed that time that a lot of them had with their kids on Friday.”
“I would hate to say, ‘Well, all the staff love it, but man, it’s hard on our community,’” said Davidson. “But that has not been the case. It looks like 90-plus percent said they either prefer staying in the four-day week, or (that) it didn’t really matter.”
Putting It to the Test
According to Baylor University’s news website, 103 communities throughout Texas have committed to the new four-day school week already. However, many small towns and cities understandably don’t want to overhaul their school system until the data shows that it’s “worth it” to do so.
Only time will tell if this burgeoning trend in the Texas school community will work in the long run or not. According to many experienced administrators across Wood County, Texas, there are positives and negatives to the idea.
Regardless of whether the system will work in big cities which have tried the project, Davidson is pleased to announce that it seems to be a win-win situation for all involved in the Alba-Golden Independent School District.
“I would say overall, both from the community and the staff, it’s been positive,” said Davidson. “The reason we did the survey (is) we just want to get a good feel of where we are; (so) at the end of the first year, I would say it’s successful! We feel like it’s been successful.”