Mesquite ISD chooses not to switch to a 4-day week, saying it has a negative impact

MESQITE (CBSNewsTexas) “Four-day school weeks have become the most popular way to hire and retain teachers in Texas.

But on Monday night, the North Texas School District made the surprise decision not to adopt it and released a study showing it has a significant negative impact on student achievement.

She made her mother proud that Kali Shumate helped open today’s Mesquite ISD board meeting.

A kindergartener and her brother, who is in second grade, have a single mother who needs them at school five days a week.

“School is my only preschool during the week,” said Dominic Bailey, parent of Mesquite ISD.

She became concerned when Mesquite ISD considered switching to the popular four-day school week calendar starting this fall.

“I just felt like it would be a burden for parents trying to find a babysitter on Fridays,” she said.

But on Monday night, Mesquite’s school board instead ruled against the Monday-Thursday program as an incentive to retain and hire more teachers.

Instead, the district will offer more four-day weekends and scheduling days during the school year, as well as giving teachers a full week off in the fall to address issues that keep people out of the profession.

“For example, better work-life balance, more free time, more time to plan things like this,” said Laura Job, chief information officer of Mesquite ISD.

School days will start 15 minutes early at 7:40 am to make up for the extra vacation days.

Mesquite ISD also dropped four-day study weeks after reading a Brown University study that found students were lagging behind in math and reading.

“The negative effects of the program are disproportionately greater in non-rural schools than in rural schools and for female students, and may increase over time.”

“We saw that it had a disproportionate impact on Hispanic and African American and bilingual students, which is a large part of our student population, so we took it as a warning and an opportunity to take a break,” Job said.

The school board has also approved a small pay increase for the district, which is currently able to hire 40 more teachers.

Mesquite ISD is also concerned about rumors that the Texas legislature may follow the lead of some other states in banning the four-day school week.

Even if no current bills are filed, this is a long-standing issue with the growing number of Texas districts accepting it for the upcoming school year.

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The post Mesquite ISD chooses not to switch to a 4-day week, saying it has a negative impact

first appeared on Texas Standard News.

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