Four-day school week suits Nebraska district
Murray, Neb. - It's Monday morning, and the schools are dark. The yellow buses rest.
Students will mow lawns for money, clock in at Pamida or help their fathers with farm chores. Others will sleep in. Some will have baby sitters.
Welcome to tiny Murray, Neb., where school is out on Mondays.
"I can save up for college and make my truck payment every month," said Kalby Wehrbein, 18, a senior who works on Mondays. "It's a major thing for me."
The Conestoga school district in Murray, a farming town 25 miles south of Omaha, stopped having school on Mondays two years ago in a last-ditch bid to pare expenses and dig out of debt.
For the same reason, the shorter week could come to an Iowa school district near you.
Iowa lawmakers will consider in the next session whether schools should have the power to operate on four-day weeks. The state's 180-day school calendar doesn't allow it now.
A shorter school week doesn't mean fewer hours in the classroom. It just means four longer days. Wehrbein's school day stretches from 7:55 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Conestoga's schedule is getting a closer look in Iowa and Nebraska as small school districts battle financial problems fueled by shrinking enrollment, climbing costs and, in some cases, their own failure to cut back.
Conestoga school officials have saved more than $100,000 a year - a tenth of their overall budget - in unused bus fuel, energy and substitute teacher pay.
The shorter week's effect on students is tougher to measure.
ACT scores are on the rise. Graduation rates have held steady. The school district missed annual targets set by the federal No Child Left Behind law in the 2006-07 school year, but it got high marks in a Nebraska ratings system.
Critics in Iowa aren't convinced the payoff is worth a gamble on children's education.
Some lawmakers also believe a shorter week sends the wrong message at a time when Iowa has lost ground in national test scores, despite its heritage of good schools.
"I don't want to give kids a third day to sit in front of the television," said state Rep. Mike May, a Republican from Spirit Lake.
"I'm a proponent of local control and think we should give districts options that work for them," May said. "But I don't want to hurt student achievement in this state."
