Montana district switches to 4-day school week amid community opposition

A rural school district in Montana will close on Fridays while lengthening the other school days by 45 minutes this fall – despite strong opposition from residents.

“There were standing-room-only public meetings with community members threatening not to support future budget levies,” writes Alex Mitchell for the Hechinger Report. “Parents filed two formal complaints. One family sued. Some are transferring their children to districts miles away next year or will take on homeschooling out of concern their kids would otherwise fall behind.”

The Florence-Carlton district, which serves about 730 students, approved the four-day school week in a 3-to-1 board vote in January.

“The only things they showed as positives were anecdotal,” said Virginia Mahn, a Florence-Carlton parent and graduate who filed a complaint against the board. “It’d be an article from a superintendent that was like, ‘This is great for us.’ OK, so where’s your data?” 

‘Student achievement is never part of the conversation’ 

Four-day school weeks began in Montana in 2005 after the state moved from a 180-day school year to a minimum of 1,080 hours. 

“Based on student testing data from 2008 to 2023, (a University of Montana) study found that student learning suffered in the four-day school week,” Mitchell writes, noting elementary proficiency rates dropped by as much as 7 percentage points for reading and 14 percentage points for math. 

The study also found costs increased under the four-day model because teacher salaries and other services tended to rise or remain the same. 

“Student achievement is never part of the conversation,” said Bill McCaw, one of the study’s authors. “Day care, convenience, longer vacation — all that’s being discussed. But not student achievement.” 

Montana isn’t the only state to move toward shortened school weeks.  

Almost 900 districts in 26 states have adopted a four-day schedule in response to “staffing shortages and financial challenges,” according to Mitchell. 

“The one clear positive for the four-day school week? Recruitment. When surveyed, more than 80 percent of new teachers preferred a shortened school week over a five-day week.” 

However, states such as Colorado are beginning to re-evaluate this trend.  

A 2024 report concluded five-day districts surpassed four-day ones in academic performance without “significant impact on budgets or teacher recruitment and retention,” the Center Square reported. 

“Given these facts – that four-day weeks are not better for students and don’t demonstrably meet the goals of districts making the change – the Keystone Policy Center recommends that the Colorado Department of Education take a long, hard look at the practice as soon as possible,” researchers concluded.