4-Day School Weeks: Headed to Your District?
Topics: Education Issues Today
Peach County, Georgia, located in south-central Georgia, near Interstate 75 and Highway 49, was the last of 161 counties created in the state of Georgia in 1924. The county has a population of just under 24,000 people, a trifling amount compared to the 8.2 million in all of Georgia, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
Yet an interesting thing is happening in this small county that could affect the rest of Georgia, and perhaps other parts of the country: it switched to a four-day school week in response to a nearly $900,000 loss from the county's school budget.
The school system in Peach County is one of about 100 districts out of more than 15,000 throughout the country using a 4-day school week. Many of the rest of the schools on 4-day school weeks are in the rural West, but Peach County sits just a couple of hours south of Atlanta, a test case of sorts for Georgia, during a time when more and more school budgets are getting slashed throughout the country.
The idea of 4-day school weeks is not new. In fact, they have been around for decades, mostly in Western states like Wyoming and Idaho, as a way to fight rising energy prices. More recently, 4-day weeks are a growing trend in states like Colorado and Minnesota, and are being tested elsewhere in a handful of other states. Like Georgia.
Not many education experts think much of the idea of 4-day school weeks. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest school