If the Glide School District’s experience offers any guidance to Redmond, it may be to stick with the decision to adopt the four-day school week.

Glide, about 17 miles east of Roseburg, went to four-day weeks in 1997. Four years later, the school board considered moving back to a five-day week. The result was basically a community revolt in which the board was recalled, according to Superintendent Don Schrader.

“(The four-day week) was uncomfortable, but after a while, the community got used to it and liked it,” Schrader said.

But that doesn’t mean everything is ideal under the four-day model.

The Redmond School Board adopted such a schedule in the spring as the district struggled to overcome a budget gap of up to $7 million. The new schedule goes into effect at the beginning of the 2009-10 school year.

Redmond will become the largest school district in the state to adopt a four-day week. Statewide, there are about 50 districts with the four-day week — until now, all of them rural and many with fewer than 1,000 students.

In that way, Redmond, with 7,000 students, will break a statewide model.

Until now, the Morrow County School District, with about 2,200 students, was the largest such district. But superintendents around the state said it is difficult to judge how the size would impact Redmond’s move.

“It plays out very differently in different places,” said Bob Dunton, superintendent of the Corbett School District. “There aren’t very many general rules.”

If a general rule exists, it is that districts make the move for financial reasons. Glide, for example, saves about $150,000 annually out of an $8 million budget, Schrader said.

Redmond’s savings are much higher — about $3 million — because it has eliminated teacher preparation time during class days. That means fewer teachers are needed to teach the same number of classes, so the district cut 59 teaching positions.

Consistency

Superintendents said the academic impact was negligible. After start-up difficulties, scheduling became easier and more consistent for the districts. Dunton said his district almost always schedules parent-teacher conferences or in-school training on Fridays to avoid interrupting the shorter week. That approach allows teachers to plan the same way for every week, Dunton said. Of 37 school weeks, 35 are uninterrupted in Corbett, which is in the Columbia River Gorge. Under the five-day model, just 21 or 22 weeks weren’t interrupted.

Instead of a three-day week here, a 4½-day week there, followed by a few five-day weeks, Dunton said each week is four days long.

“What that means is a teacher gets to deliver what they intend to teach that week,” Dunton said. “That consistency is invaluable.”

Once a community adjusts, that consistency becomes almost intractable, said Mark Burrows, the superintendent of the Morrow district. Burrows took over at Morrow after the district adopted the new schedule, but he was a principal in John Day when that district adopted the shorter week.

“It was unpopular, and there was a lot of criticism,” Burrows remembered of John Day. “But what you find in a community, once you have a four-day week, nobody would be willing to go back.”

At Morrow, Burrows found the shortened week — even with its longer work days — helped the district recruit teachers. Morrow’s schools are spread across three towns — Heppner, Boardman and Irrigon — and such rural districts can struggle to recruit teachers, Burrows said. The possibility of free or less-structured Fridays attracts teachers, Burrows said.

“(The four-day week) is an edge up on recruiting good, quality teachers to a rural area,” Burrows said.

Families

It can also be an advantage, in the end, for families, according to Glide’s Schrader, who was a parent in the district when the shortened week was adopted. Once families adjust to the four-day week, they come to treat Fridays as if they are regular holidays, Schrader said.

Still, it wasn’t easy at first. His family had to find day care, but they were lucky enough to be able to afford it.

“We had to find day care for our kids on Friday, and the older ones, you have teenagers home,” Schrader said. “You’ve always got to plan for that. I imagine there are some families that are limited financially.”

Carri Grieb has three children in the Morrow schools. The family lives on a wheat farm about a 25-minute drive from the children’s school. If they ride the bus, it can take more than 90 minutes, Grieb said. The Grieb children have only known the four-day week.

Each of her children is involved in after-school activities, but the long days don’t bother them, Grieb said.

“The day doesn’t seem long to them,” Grieb said.

The four-day week can bring a heightened focus to the four class days, said Larry Swanson, a teacher at Corbett High School. Swanson also has a daughter who is a sophomore at the school.

“We know as a family that we do nothing but school on those four days,” Swanson said in an e-mail. “We just get more concentrated work time — and kids get better results with that approach.”

Dunton said the enthusiasm in Corbett for the four-day week took hold quickly. He took over the district, and his first task was to evaluate whether to keep the shortened week. In a community-wide survey, 85 percent of parents wanted to keep it.

“They would’ve chased me out of town if I had suggested going back to five days,” Dunton said.

The Colton School District adopted the four-day week in 2004, and the community has adjusted to the schedule, Superintendent Linda Johnson said. In her three years in the district, she said, not a single parent has asked her to move back to a five-day week.

“At this point, parents really like it,” Johnson said. “They do a lot of medical stuff with kids on Fridays so kids don’t miss as much (school) during the week.”

Drawbacks

Superintendents said families sometimes get too used to having Fridays off. Each district has, or has tested, class on Friday when a holiday falls on Monday. Redmond plans to have Friday classes when that happens. That way, districts maintain four-day weeks and don’t lose instructional time during holiday weeks.

Glide had the Friday holiday schedule, but after a few years gave up on that part of the calendar. High school students often had conflicts with jobs, and families frequently had plans for the usual long weekend, Schrader said.

“(The district) found out that on those Monday holidays, attendance was real low on Fridays because it was out of the schedule,” Schrader said.

Schrader also worries that the longer days don’t allow enough time for after-school programs. When Glide went to four days, each class day lengthened by about an hour.

“It limits the amount of time after school for meetings and planning time,” Schrader said. “We kind of feel like we get it done, but there’s a little bit more time crunch after school.”

Redmond has not finalized whether teachers will plan for classes before and after school or on Fridays.

Morrow’s Burrow echoed the concerns that school days are so crowded with class that not much time is left for other issues. The Morrow district has tutoring programs on Fridays, but those are optional — students are “invited.” Burrow said that means less structured time for students who are falling behind in class.

“The thing I struggle with as administrator is finding enough time for struggling learners,” Burrow said.

People in the Morrow district joke about their kids having to get used to a five-day week once they leave the school district, Grieb said. But the concerns are more than just a joke.

“The world isn’t really a four-day week,” Grieb said. “OK, when you go get a job, you’re going to have to work on a Friday.”