Indiana has set a tougher bar for public schools that want to move to a four-day school week. Under a law that took effect July 1, a school must first earn an "A" on the state's A-F accountability scale, along with meeting three other requirements, before it can even apply for a waiver.
There is an awkward wrinkle. The only school in Indiana currently running a four-day week is a high-poverty elementary that has never earned an "A," and its pilot is about to expire.
The New Bar
House Enrolled Act 1266 lays out four minimum standards a school must meet to be considered for a four-day-week flexibility waiver through the Indiana Department of Education:
- Earn an "A" grade under the state's A-F accountability model.
- Offer transportation for students who choose to attend a school still operating on a five-day schedule.
- Meet the state's minimum teacher salary threshold of $45,000 a year.
- Provide enrichment and remediation at no cost to parents on the day school is not in session.
Even then, the State Board of Education must grant final approval. The education department issued guidance to schools about the criteria ahead of the coming school year. Waiver applications will formally open to other districts after the state releases its A-F grades later this school year, a department spokesperson said, and the department will prioritize applications "that clearly center on student needs and include thoughtful engagement with families and school staff about the potential impacts," said Courtney Bearsch, its chief communications officer.
A Model That Is Spreading
The four-day week began as a rural workaround, a way to cope with a shortage of bus drivers. It has since spread to urban and suburban districts using it to recruit teachers and families, stretching the school day so that everyone gets Fridays off. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that about 850 school districts nationally now operate on a four-day schedule, trimming budgets by an average of 0.4% to 2.5% a year.
Indiana's Only Four-Day School
Vinton Elementary School, part of the Lafayette School Corporation in Tippecanoe County, is entering the third and final year of its pilot. It is the sole Indiana school operating a four-day week under the department's flexibility waiver for innovation.
The schedule is not a shorter year so much as a compressed one. Classes run 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., Monday through Thursday, which is how the roughly 400-student school packs the state's required 54,000 instructional minutes into 151 days instead of the usual 180. Students come in on a Friday only when a holiday takes out a Monday, so they never lose two days in the same week.
Principal Cindy Preston says the results have been strong. By the school's own count, disciplinary referrals fell from 495 before the pilot to 293 last school year, and staff absences dropped from 656 a year to 398. Eighty-nine percent of third graders passed their spring assessments last year, up from 73% when the school still ran five days. A clear majority of parents and staff report they are satisfied with the schedule, Preston said.
Enrollment dipped in the first year, then rebounded, she said, and 26% of the new students transferred in from a neighboring district. Staff worries faded as the year went on. Parents stopped pulling children out early for weekend trips. And teachers got room to breathe: the 90-minute reading block became 120 minutes.
"Even though we're squeezing five days into four," Preston said, "teachers feel like they really do have a lot more wiggle room to do more hands-on, deeper dives into instruction instead of just hitting the surface."
The Catch
Vinton already clears two of the four new standards. It meets the teacher salary threshold, and it offers free busing to other elementary schools in the district for families who prefer a five-day week. The YMCA runs on-site daycare at Vinton on Fridays, though few students use it, and Preston said she is exploring how to provide free enrichment and remedial programming on the off day to satisfy the third requirement.
The "A" grade is the problem. "We're a high-poverty school," Preston said. "We're about 80 to 85% poverty, so hitting that mark is very hard. This will be my 15th year as principal here, and we've never reached that."
She is hoping lawmakers either grandfather Vinton in or revise the standards, so the school can keep the schedule even without an "A" this year.
That leaves Indiana in a peculiar spot. It has written a performance test for four-day weeks that the one school with an actual track record may not pass, even though the numbers that school reports, fewer suspensions, fewer staff absences, and a 16-point jump in third-grade passing rates, are the kind of results the test presumably exists to protect.
Sources
The Republic: Indiana sets standards for four-day school week waivers
Indiana Capital Chronicle
Indiana Department of Education
