ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Fox C-6 School District could become the first major school district to transition to the four-day school week.
More than 161 school districts in the state of Missouri has transitioned to a four day school week, with most on the southern and western side of the state with district like the Independence School District in the Kansas City-area among those to transition to a four-day school week so far. The Independence District is the largest district so far in the state to transition to a four-day school week, with the district housing nearly 15,000 students.
The trend has not quite picked up on the St. Louis-area yet with the Crystal City 47 School District down in Jefferson County being the closest district to St. Louis to transition to a four-day school week. Crystal City only has about 550 students in the district.
Hazelwood School District is attempting a hybrid-format of it at Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, but they have not yet fully committed to a full-district transition.
FOX C-6 School District in Arnold, which has nearly 11,000 students, could become the largest school district in the St. Louis-area to transition, with the district considering moving to a four-day school week as an option to not only get more teachers, but cut their budget.
"Our primary reason for looking at it, is we need to right size our budget moving forward and research has come out that it's about a two to 3% savings," Fox Superintendent Dr. Paul Fregeau said on KMOX Monday.
On Monday night, the district held the first of four informational sessions for the potential transition, with one of the participants, Jon Turner, an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Leadership, and Special Education at Missouri State University, and an active proponent of schools transitioning to a four day school week, seeing the sessions being informative and receiving very good turnout.
"I've done a lot of these community meetings around the state and I was really impressed by how many parents and staff members from the Fox school district showed, showed up at the meeting Monday night," said Turner on Total Information A.M. Tuesday. "What I shared with them is basically how the four day school week is being implemented in Missouri and the skyrocketing number of school districts that have transitioned to it."
"Currently, we're over a third of our school public school districts in Missouri that are on the four day week. So we talked a lot about just the practical application of how a four-day school week district looks when it's implemented that way and we talked about some of the challenges and some of the areas of concern that should be on their radar."
Turner explains that there were two meetings on Monday, one for district staff and another with the general public, with some district staff staying for both and both meetings had "a lot of good dialogue."
"I think that's one thing that was really interesting to me about this meeting that made it unusual is it was a chance for me to share the basic concepts of a four-day week outlooks when it's implemented." said Turner. "But again, allow parents to have conversations with teachers and have discussions. And then around the room, there were at each table, paper sheets there for areas of concern and for areas of opportunity that they want to share."
"It was not contentious. It was very much a great exchange of ideas, concepts, opportunities."
Fox C-6 Districts parents and teachers will have more opportunities to hear from school administrators regarding the potential move, including being able to participate in a discussion with Independence School District superintendent Dr. Dale Herl regarding how the Kansas City-based district has dealt with it.
Despite the talks, Fox administrators have said it was highly unlikely the transition would be made next fall.
The potential transition just have some pushback from members of the community with Missouri State Sen. Doug Beck (D-Affton) is pushing a bill (SB 784), that would require districts with more than 30,000 residents to hold a five-day school week, unless a majority of voters are in support of a four-day week. The bill would also incentive district to stay in the five-day school week.
"It would have a fiscal impact of $100 million a year," Beck told KMOX. "So over 10 years, that would be a billion dollars put back into our public schools."
Turner says he has reached out to Beck and his office and would welcome meeting with him to discuss the data regarding schools transitioning to a four-day work week.
"I heard him put out an invitation to me to come visit with him in his office and I immediately sent his office an email requesting that meeting. So I hope I get a chance to have a conversation with Senator Beck," said Turner.