Havre board looks at four-day school week

Editor’s note: This version corrects the job title of Sunnyside Intermediate School Librarian Carrie Gillen.The Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees examined the possibility of moving to a four-day week for the district at their monthly meeting Tuesday, a decision spoken in favor of by a crowd of teachers which will be voted on at a later meeting.

Discussion of the issue began with Havre Superintendent Craig Mueller presenting four possible calendars to the board, two with four-day models and two with more-traditional five-day models.

Option one was referred to as a "true four-day week," a 157-day year that eliminates all Friday's and extends the other four days to run from 7:58 a.m. to 4 p.m. This model would add a total of 49 learning hours to the schedule and was the one favored by many of the teachers who spoke during public comments.

Option two, a 164-day schedule, included some Fridays but would only extend the day to 3:30 p.m.

Option three was a traditional five-day week but would feature an earlier start to the year, allowing the first semester to wrap up before Christmas, and graduation to take place before Memorial Day weekend.

Option four was a five-day week with a more typical start and end date for the year, with graduation on Memorial Day weekend and mid-terms in January.

After hearing from the public and discussing the finer points of each calendar the board voted to take all four under consideration to be deliberated upon in a meeting in the coming weeks.

Mueller presents concerns

Before public comments and the board's discussion Mueller provided his thoughts on the matter, mostly in the form of concerns he has about the possible effects of the four-day week.

His biggest concern, he said, was the potential effects it would have on student achievement. He said he wouldn't go into statistics just because the board had already read the studies themselves, but he wishes there was more of a guarantee that the change would have positive effects.

He also raised concerns about asking parents to adapt to yet another change after a rocky year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We've asked a great deal of the Havre community in the past two years, our schools were closed when there were almost no COVID-19 cases in our community," Mueller said.

He said transitioning to a four-day week would not be nearly as simple as transitioning to the hybrid model used during the pandemic, that it would be a far more complex process.

He said teacher resignations are rising and the high school dropout rate is higher than ever with attendance at a 10-year low, and it's unknown if a four-day week would solve any of these challenges.

Mueller suggested that during such a difficult time this may not be the best time for such a dramatic change.

He also said the district has already implemented several measure to make it clear that teachers are appreciated, including an essential workers stipend, a COVID-19 retention payment, supporting legislation which raised teacher base pay and creating a COVID-19 sick leave bank despite a lack of federal support.

Board discussion

While board members didn't take explicit positions for or against any particular calendar, they did express their own concerns and perspectives.

Board Chair Curtis Smeby echoed Mueller's concerns regarding the timing of this change and how parents would react, but later said he also sees a lot of teachers expressing serious concern about burnout and mental health care, and it's clear they're looking for a change.

"I see great need, a really great need," he said. "... I hear people hurting."

He also said he wants to be sure the board is doing right by the marginalized people in the district, and making sure their voices are heard.

"It's easy to do what's best for us, but what is best for the community, for every student?" he said.

Trustee Garrit Ophus expressed his own concern about extended class periods and how students would react to them.

"If I'm bored in that class, and you tell me I've gotta sit there for 10 more minutes, I'm gone, I'm not going to sit there," he said.

He said from a staff perspective it seems like a great idea, but he questions whether the new model would be a draw for students.

"Are we going to draw them in to get the attendance back up, or is it just, for lack of a better term, a gimmick," he said.

The board's comments were not entirely negative. Trustee Jacob Ingram said, in reading the studies and data on 4-day weeks, one observation remains consistent, that the greatest predictor of student success is a good instructor, and given how many teachers say this will make them better and attract new people it stands to reason that it will benefit students.

Ingram also said having a consistent schedule is another big help to students and the traditional five-day schedule includes a lot of holidays and four-day weeks anyway, whereas option 1 features a far more consistent week-to-week schedule.

He also touted the fact that the schedule adds so many more hours of class time, another benefit for students.

"That's an extra seven days (worth of class time)," he said.

Trustee Tim Scheele also talked about the increase in class length being much more efficient for teachers, particularly those in the more hands-on classes like woodworking, metal and automotive.

Scheele said and extra 10 minutes can be the difference between being able to do two projects and doing one in a period.

He said it's true that this change isn't a guaranteed remedy to the schools' issues, but it seems worth trying.

"We've got to try something," he said.

Public comments

The public comments section of the meeting was dominated by Havre Public Schools teachers who filled the bleachers, some with signs calling for the four-day week as a needed change for the sake of their work life balance.

Work-life balance was a major theme of the 11 teachers who spoke, all in favor of the four-day week.

Sunnyside Teacher Ashely Gauer said teachers are uniquely resilient and met every demand made of them during the shifting and stressful time of the pandemic, but they need downtime like everyone else, and they have very little at the moment.

Gauer said teachers are always using their off hours and weekends just to do their jobs, and being able to do those things on Friday will allow teachers to get part of their lives back.

"Right now, the buildings aren't technically open on the weekends, but I'm always there anyway," she said.

Lincoln-McKinley teacher Kelsey Ward was another who said teachers need more time for their lives outside of work.

Ward said she wants to see her own daughter more, but under the current model she's always working.

"I don't see her enough because I'm constantly at school," she said.

She said she feels like many other teachers, burnt out and defeated, and she's looking at some way to get a break.

"This is the hardest year I've ever taught," she said. "... I'm starting to explore other options."

She said the school needs to change in order to keep its people and draw in new ones, a point made by most other teachers as well.

One teacher who talked about the move as a possible recruitment tool was Havre Education Association President Jessica Jones, who said many students are without an in-person teacher.

"I teach four sections of sophomores, which means I've heard approximately 1,000 complaints about the lack of an in-person geometry teacher," she said.

She said when she told a class they were getting an interim principal at the high school soon, a normally timid-student said, "I'd rather have a math teacher," a sentiment echoed by many of her classmates.

Jones also said the community survey the board put out which returned over 70 percent approval for the change and the almost 90 percent support among teachers should be an indication of where things stand.

Michelle Keller, a teacher at the middle and high schools, said she actually has direct experience with the four-day week from her years at Turner Public Schools, which has been doing it for 11 years.

When the change was proposed it was widely criticized by parents, she said, but now one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who wants to go back.

She said data on the four-day week can be found to support both sides of the discussion, but in her personal experience the model can be very effective if implemented properly and she wouldn't support it if she thought there was a serious risk that it would adversely affect students and their outcomes.

As things stand, she said, her own children's teachers are constantly having to cover other classes during the time they would otherwise use for class preparation or lunch, so they are clearly spread too thin and can't afford to lose anyone during an extremely difficult school year.

"There's been a lot of tears shed this year," she said.

Lincoln-McKinley teacher Jane Leinwand, as well as others, said the model should at least be given a try for a few years.

Havre High teacher Mandy Nitz said teachers know how to adapt their lessons and methods to make the longer class periods work for students.

Sunnyside Intermediate School Librarian Carrie Gillen said it's been very difficult to watch what teachers have had to go through over the past few years, and, as much as she enjoyed teaching, she was glad she didn't have to do it.

Gillen expressed significant frustration with how arguments over this issue have evolved online, with so many people bashing and insulting teachers for asking for this change only to not show up at the meeting.

"Where are they?" she asked. "They're not here."

She said the fact that teachers took the time, something they have very little of, to come to the meeting and advocate for themselves should show the board how much this means to them.

"I have kids and I know without the Leinwands and the Kellers and the Gauers and the Nitzs, they would not have made it through the last few years," she said.

Despite the crowd being mainly teachers in favor of the four-day week, the model was not without critics.

Two audience members speak against

Shanetrice Allen was the one parent who spoke in opposition to the plan, and while she said she loves the teachers of Havre Public Schools she doesn't get a break from her job to look after and help her children on Fridays and raised concerns that the change would negatively effect the mental health of students that see school as stress relief.

Allen also said she thinks the change would encourage a "D is passing" mentality that will not prepare them for a real life that requires five-day weeks.

"We need to prepare them for real life and their life cannot stop at four days," she said.

Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line Executive Director Tim Brurud also spoke against the four-day week, saying Havre doesn't have the child-care infrastructure to deal with so many young children out of school on Fridays.

He said if they decided to go to four-day weeks the club will try to implement an all-day program on Friday's but as things stand they wouldn't be able staff it properly.

He also claimed that recent studies indicate that the four-day week "without a doubt" has detrimental impacts on math and reading achievement for students.

Multiple teachers disagreed with that interpretation of the data.

An article published July 12, 2021, by the Brookings Institute says that some data indicates that that often depends on how the four-day week is implemented, mainly on how many hours of instruction occurs.

"Recent national evidence also suggests that the schools where four-day weeks led to reductions in learning time see the most negative outcomes on student academic progress, with little to no impact on achievement among schools that maintain adequate learning time," the article says.

The board voted to take all four schedules under consideration for the next board meeting.