Mesquite ISD opts against a 4-day school week

Texas schools consider 4-day week to fight teacher shortages

Many districts are at least considering a significant change to their school schedule to help with staffing.

MESQUITE, Texas - After futher discussion Mesquite ISD will not consider a 4-day school week during a meeting on Monday night.

The district opted against a discussion of the change, in part, due to concerns that Texas lawmakers may block the option in the future.

Mesquite ISD said it was considering the plan to help combat an "extreme" teacher shortage.

Several smaller districts in North Texas made the shift to the 4-day week, including Anna and Terrell.

Crosby ISD, in the Houston-area, voted last week to shift its schedule.

Right now, there are about 50 school districts across the state that are trying or getting ready to try the 4-day week.

Experts say they have doubts that the change will solve the problems that they hope it will.

"Because students require a certain number of contact hours with their teachers in order to effectively learn the year's worth of curriculum, all of the contact hours with children would still have to be met in a 4-day work week or learning will suffer," said Chris Sloan, from the Tarleton State University College of Education. "To make up the missing day that either means adding more days to the school calendar or adding hours to each day of the school week or both."

Sloan says schools that reduce the number of contact hours will likely see a drop in test scores.

"With the idea of three-day weekends sounding nice in theory, in practice either the hours the teacher works is exactly the same or someone suffers," he said.