A small Pike County school district has announced it will be the first current district in the state to implement a four-day week, with plans to begin the schedule in the 2019-2020 school year.
The decision was made during a regular school board meeting at Kirby on Thursday, according to a statement by the district. The board unanimously approved the four-day school week, officials said.
According to the statement, the district spent six months discussing, researching and distributing surveys about the concept of a four-day week among administrators, faculty and staff, parents, students and the broader community.
Pike Palmer, superintendent of the Kirby School District, said talk about a four-day schedule first began when news broke in 2018 about Colorado schools adopting the schedule to cut costs. Community members approached Kirby administrators about making a similar shift.
“Even when we weren’t really talking about it people were talking about it,” he said.
The district first considered a four-day week to combat issues with student attendance and difficulties in bringing teachers to west Arkansas, Palmer said. But when a required increase in minimum wage and teacher pay passed into state law, the superintendent said his district’s operating costs became a primary factor.
The district’s budget is just over $2 million, Palmer said. According to the superintendent, the schools’ goal is to save between 3 to 5 percent of that, with the biggest cuts likely to come to transportation and utilities costs.
Pay for teachers, aides and cafeteria workers will not decrease, as the length of the school day will increase on those days in which classes are in session, Palmer said. Though bus drivers will likely receive a pay cut, Palmer said they will have opportunities to work additional hours through the enrichment program, or through maintenance work and other tasks around the district while classes are out of session.
Palmer added that the decision to go to a four-day schedule was not an effort to stop consolidation. He said the district received a waiver to stay open, and schools there anticipate having a total of about 360 enrollees during the next school year.
“We’re just trying to be proactive and not reactive,” Palmer said.
The shift to a four-day class schedule will come with some difficulties, officials acknowledged. Parents and guardians will largely be required to provide an extra day’s care for their children, as well as breakfast and lunch several additional days each month. However, administrators said they felt “the pros outweighed the cons” and that they were taking measures to ease some of the burden. Kirby's listed population is only 447.
According to Palmer, the school district intends to roll out a “Trojan Enrichment Initiative,” which will provide tutoring and other services, such as breakfast and lunch, to students.
“With any change comes apprehension and concerns but we will all work extremely hard together to make this innovative idea succeed,” officials said in their statement.
The district will soon send out a school calendar, registration details and other information regarding the next school year, according to administrators.