Four days a week? Thank you, Republican party!
A South Dakota school district has joined the march toward a four-day school week to save money.
The Irene-Wakonda district figures it can save $50,000, or the equivalent of one teacher, by running classes Monday through Thursday and stretching each day by about 30 minutes.
“Children are pretty resilient,” district Superintendent Larry Johnke told the Star on Tuesday. “Time wise, there’s not a lot of difference. We did our research and found test scores have not gone down in places that have a four-day week.”
The 300-student Irene-Wakonda district lost of a chunk of its $2.3 million budget from the state and had already cut events, an art program and two coaches.
“In this financial crisis, we wanted to maintain our core content and vocational program, so we were forced to do this,” said Johnke.
The rural school district joins about 120 in 21 American states that have sliced a day off the school week to save money. A growing trend over the last decade, accelerated by the U.S. recession, the four-day school week tends to crop up in smaller, rural districts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
