By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The superintendents of two Iowa school districts operating on a four-day school week say the change has helped the districts find and keep staff. James Craig is the superintendent of Cardinal Community in Eldon, which is in its third year of having classes Tuesday through Friday.

We have professional development on some of the Mondays and some of the Mondays everybody is off,” he says, “so teachers have that time that they can use for preparation or family things or medical appointments, whatever they need to take care of for themselves.” Dan Maeder is superintendent of Moulton-Udell Schools, which meet on Mondays through Thursdays. Maeder, who was not at the district when the switch was made four years ago, says Moulton-Udell was struggling to get and retain staff.

“It was difficult to hire and retain staff at such a small school out in the middle of the country, basically,” Maeder says, “and so that was one of the motivating factors.” In Colorado, two-thirds of school districts operate four days a week and about a quarter of Missouri’s school districts have changed to a four-day-a-week calendar. There are just 17 public school districts in Iowa that hold classes four days a week. Maeder says it may take a while to catch in Iowa, where there’s a five-day-work-week culture.

“One of the biggest concerns going into it is child care. Folks are used to having a place for the children to go all five days…What we’ve found at Moulton-Udell is that’s not really been a challenge,” Maeder says. “…Parents, I think, end up really, really enjoying it because you get more family time…which I think our world today is something critical, that we don’t have enough of.” And, in terms of student achievement, Craig says at Cardinal Community, test scores have been going up since the change for a four-day week.

“We are continuing to see growth and we still operate summer school programs and some of those students that struggle during the year and get that extra support are continuing to show growth,” Craig said. “We have not seen any negative impact.” The superintendents made their comments during taping of Iowa Press on Iowa PBS.