🎧 Listen: In today's episode of The Journal podcast, ChapmanReports explains how some school districts are adopting a four-day week to combat a teacher shortage, and one superintendent talks about how parents and teachers are reacting
This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.Speaker 2: As the fall school year kicks into high gear in much of the country, many schools are facing a shortage of teachers unlike any they have ever seen before.Speaker 4: Kansas could face its worst teacher shortage in state history this fall.Speaker 6: Underpaid, stressed out, and increasingly dealing with political pressure.Speaker 6: Many teachers have had enough.
Chris Helsinga: Our goal is to just have people apply. I mean, seriously, when you only get three or four applicants, and back in the day you'd get 20 or 30. And so our goal is to keep our teachers here. Once we have them, we want to retain them. Chris Helsinga: The demographics here is rural, got 525 students, very conservative. Poverty is around about 42, 44%, free and reduced lunch. High school is 90 years old. The elevator was broken for a year. We just got it fixed. We have several students in wheelchairs, so that was a huge issue.
Ben Chapman: Right. So the four day school week has actually been around for decades, but it began to gather some steam again around the pandemic because staffing issues were beginning to become a problem. And so then we saw another rash of schools head to four day weeks, with the number jumping from around 650 before the pandemic to around 800 now.
Chris Helsinga: In our area, there's other school districts going to a four day week. And so we did a culture survey last fall and that seemed to kind of resonate with the staff. Look at a four day week, look at a four day week. All these districts around us are paying 38, but if I can go work over there for four days and or district over there five days, we have our chances of hiring you because they want to come here.Chris Helsinga: Yes, it was attract and retain staff. That was our goal.
Chris Helsinga: Well, I've been asked that a lot, but we've only had three Mondays off, so it's kind of early. Chris Helsinga: There's a couple said, "I'm applying here because of the four day week." And the new high school principal said, "I'm applying because this gives me more time to be able to spend with my mom who's elderly." So I want to say, yes, there was people that applied because of the four day week.
Chris Helsinga: The academics. To me, that's the main reason why we're here, learning, student learning. And are all kids studying at home? No. But it gives us one more caveat where students, let's say they don't get their homework done, why not? You got another day? Why not? We need parent support. You got that Monday to do your work. Get it done. Why not?
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