After Independence OKs 4-day school week, another large KC area district may be next

Shortly after the Independence school board voted to transition to a four-day week, another large district near Kansas City has decided to start exploring the idea.

The Independence district on Dec. 13 became the largest in Missouri to adopt the four-day school week, starting next fall. Now, St. Joseph school officials north of Kansas City are considering making the same move to better attract and retain staff amid ongoing labor shortages — and they’re asking Independence for insight.

“We have interesting challenges because of our location. We’re 40 to 50 miles away from suburban Kansas City, but we do lose a lot of staff to suburban Kansas City districts,” St. Joseph Superintendent Gabe Edgar said. “So it’s about those types of things. But it still has to be right for the kids. If it’s not right for the kids, then it’s not an idea we want to go forward with.”

Before the Independence school board voted 6-1 to adopt a four-day week, the condensed school week was exclusive to a growing number of smaller, more rural districts in Missouri. As of the start of this school year, more than a quarter of Missouri school districts had a four-day school week, according to state data.

Independence, with roughly 14,000 students, is the largest district in the state to adopt the model. The second largest is Warren County outside St. Louis, with about 3,000 students.

St. Joseph has more than 10,200 students.

Edgar said he is hoping to meet with Independence administrators to learn how they gathered community input before approving the change. He said watching the process unfold in the nearby district could help inform St. Joseph’s final decision.

But he emphasized that the district is in the earliest stages of exploring the concept. If approved, the four-day model would likely go in effect for the 2024-25 school year.

“I was a superintendent at Marceline for 11 years before St. Joseph,” he said, referring to the small, central Missouri district. “We talked about (the four-day week) twice when I was there. And it just wasn’t right for the district at the time.

“A lot of different factors go into it. Are you doing it to see if there’s a better education for the kids? Are you doing it to recruit staff? A lot of questions have to be answered, and we don’t have those answers at this point.”

Independence officials said they were hoping to capitalize on being the first district in the Kansas City metro to adopt a shorter school week, aiming to use it as an incentive in an increasingly competitive job market. Some voiced concerns about a snowball effect, worried that if too many other districts follow suit, Independence might lose that edge.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 61 small, rural school districts in Missouri operated on four-day school weeks, said Jon Turner, associate professor of educational leadership at Missouri State University. This school year, that number has ballooned to more than 140. In Kansas, 25 districts were on four-day weeks last school year, state officials previously said.

The move in Independence was met with several other concerns. Some parents worry about what the shorter week will mean for student achievement, as well as families who cannot afford transportation or child care, or need additional services for their special education students on the fifth day.

But some applauded the change, saying they were excited to have an extra day off and feel it may benefit staff and student mental health, while also attracting more, quality teachers to stay in the district.

Edgar said the St. Joseph district will determine whether the four-day model could work for its students, 70% of whom qualify for free and reduced lunch. The district also has a growing Spanish-speaking population, he said, and a difficult time filling English language learner teaching positions.

“When you talk about a 70% free-and-reduced population, you have all kinds of transportation challenges,” Edgar said. “There are challenges we have to deal with because of our environment and demographics, and that is really going to have to be something we consider. You don’t want to do something and then have transportation become an issue.

“We already have an attendance problem, at about 80%. We can’t afford to go lower. We can’t do things that’ll shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Child care and transportation on the fifth day were two of the largest concerns among families in Independence.

With the four-day schedule, the district will no longer hold classes on Mondays. School days would be extended by 35 minutes, officials have said, so that the district continues to maintain the number of instructional hours required under state law.

Independence officials said they will offer several options for students on Mondays.

The district plans to offer academic support programs for students who are scoring below grade level, so they can receive tutoring and credit recovery opportunities. Officials said transportation would be provided for those programs. The district would also provide child care that day for a cost, as well as enrichment programs for students, such as field trips, job shadowing and internships.

In St. Joseph, Edgar said his district in the meantime is considering other options to try to better recruit and retain staff. The school board this month agreed to adopt a program granting 10 non-teaching employees with a bachelor’s degree $4,000 per year for two years to pursue teaching certification. In exchange, the employees would agree to work for the district for three years.

He said the district also is considering paying student teachers, who are usually unpaid. The North Kansas City district, for example, is offering a student teaching stipend of $2,500 for the spring semester, with plans to offer $5,000 to student teachers next school year. Officials said they hope those student teachers would then be encouraged to join and stay in the district.