A rising number of districts are shortening their school weeks to attract and keep teachers. But a new study suggests four-day schedules might become a victim of their own popularity.
Andrew Camp, a researcher with the University of Arkansas’ department of education reform and colleagues tracked teacher-recruiting and -retention data in Arkansas from 2013-14 through 2023-24, a time of major growth in districts in the state adopting shorter weeks. Forty-seven districts—representing about 1 in 5 Arkansas schools—used a shortened schedule in the last school year, for example, up from only two districts six years ago.
The researchers also found that while about 5% of teachers on average changed jobs each year during that decade, teachers working in four-day school systems were 28% percent more likely to stay in their districts than those with five-day work weeks. But all else equal, researchers found that the benefits for teacher recruiting and retention were greatest when a district was the only one in its area using a shortened schedule.
That’s been the case for the rural Branson district in Colorado, which has had a four-day school week since the 1980s. It was one of the first in the state to adopt a shortened week, but now, roughly two-thirds of Colorado districts do the same, including Branson’s neighbors.
“You have to ask, who else is offering a four-day work week? If everyone is switching to a four-day week, it isn’t a big draw for teachers,” said Christine Louden, a Branson school board member. “There’s a school about 30 miles away from us over the border in New Mexico, and teachers would rather work five days a week for a higher salary [on average $5,000 to $10,000 higher] than have the benefit of that extra Friday off.”
The Arkansas study provides more detail to a very fuzzy picture of the usefulness of shortened school weeks. Research from the RAND Corp. on Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma districts suggests that shortened schedules can give districts a “competitive edge” when it comes to attracting and keeping teachers. And two-thirds of educators told the EdWeek Research Center in a 2023 survey that having a shortened school week would make them more likely to take a position.
But other statewide longitudinal studies of districts in Oregon and Montana have found no difference in recruitment and retention for teachers in four- or five-day weeks.
Looking at regional teacher pools
The Arkansas study suggests school and district leaders need to take into account regional teacher labor markets when deciding how to structure their schedules.
The rural Bauxite public schools in Arkansas, for example, switched to a four-day week in 2024-25 as a way to compete with neighboring five-day districts along Interstate 30, including the much larger Little Rock school district.
“It took us about a month to really transition to the new schedule, but after that, teacher morale dramatically increased,” said Dustin Parsons, an 8th grade science teacher at Miner Academy in Bauxite. “Teachers weren’t worn out; they were happier.”
Bauxite also decided on a Tuesday-Friday schedule to overlap with the Monday-Thursday hours for many local medical offices. That has helped cut back on both student and teacher absenteeism. “The majority of our teachers have families, and they don’t have to take off during the school day to take their kids to the doctor,” Parsons said.
Bauxite Deputy Superintendent Doug Quinn said the schedule shift has made a big difference in the qualifications of those applying to teach in the 1,600-student district.
“In 2023-24, when we went to hire staff, we had more than 10 people on alternative-licensure paths. When we went to the four-day week, we were able to hire certified teachers—even paraprofessionals with teaching credentials,” Quinn said. “It increased our ability to attract really experienced teachers who were already licensed.”
Camp and his colleagues similarly found that newly hired teachers in four-day schools were nearly 6 percentage points more likely to hold an advanced degree than were those in schools in five-day districts.
School and district leaders also need to consider teacher work issues more holistically, according to Van Schoales, a senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center in Denver, who studies school schedules in Colorado. In a study of Colorado districts, he found districts tend to use shortened schedules to sweeten the pot when they can’t offer more pay, but teachers were still priced out of some communities because of rising housing costs.
Parsons, the science teacher, said the shortened schedule has helped make up for lower salaries in Bauxite than in neighboring five-day districts, in part because the district made sure the four-day schedule also made better use of teachers’ time. Class periods have moved from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, which both provides longer planning periods for teachers and means fewer lessons have to carry over to multiple class periods.
“We’re able to get rid of some of the fluff and use our time more wisely,” Parsons said.
Quinn said the district plans to continue the four-day schedule next year, but it is monitoring the policy shift to make sure both teacher morale and student achievement continue to improve under the shortened time.
