The Yellow Board

The Yellow Board
[ The Yellow Board ]

4-day Week

Posted by Ol Sarge on 1/28/2023, 8:41 am

Looks like our district is going to a 4-day week next year. Thoughts on this and how it’s going to affect band?

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Joe on 1/28/2023, 11:16 am, in reply to "4-day Week"

Which day off?

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Dinkles on 1/29/2023, 3:44 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

We don't do a four day week but I've often wondered why no one takes Wednesday off...rather than the obvious Monday or Friday.

Personally, I'd rather have Mondays off. We can still have our evening rehearsals and possibly even start earlier and not have our kids up so late.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Joe on 1/29/2023, 9:31 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

I would LOVE Wednesdays off

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by DesertJazz on 1/28/2023, 3:14 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

This is the question I keep coming back to. Friday would prevent football games from impacting academics as much, but we'd always be working those 10+ weeks no matter what. Mondays would probably be my choice, but then you have less instructional time that you are then hitting.

I'm also curious on when start/end dates are? With kids being on minutes, I can see a calendar based on 4 days being possible to handle. The teacher component being locked in at 187 is a massive pain during our district calendar committee meetings. There's only so much professional development one can handle! I'm curious to see if the legislature/TEA ever address that difference.

From a community standpoint I wonder how parents are dealing with those schedules? HS kids it doesn't matter that you have a day you're not at home with them, but with elementary kids where are you providing them care if parent is working standard 5 day weeks?

I hope those few of you who are on this schedule can chime in. I have been genuinely curious what your experiences have been. Thinking back to 2020-2021 we had like 8 or 9 four day weeks in a row in the spring to try and trace COVID. I had a heck of time keeping momentum on teaching concert music through that.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Beagle on 1/30/2023, 11:45 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

So what precisely stops a district from offering a 175 day contract instead of a 187-189 one?

Contracts shouldn't even factor into the equation. There are solutions if a district is willing to think outside of its current paradigm.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by DesertJazz on 1/30/2023, 2:14 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

It's enshrined somewhere on the 10 month contract amount with the state. This is from TCTA's website addressing this:

"Required days of teacher service

The 10-month teacher contract year requires a minimum of 187 days of service. Recent TCTA-initiated legislation allows school districts anticipating providing fewer than 180 instructional days during a school year to also reduce the number of required teacher days of service proportionately without a reduction in an educator’s salary."

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Ol Sarge on 1/28/2023, 3:09 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

Friday

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Me on 1/31/2023, 9:11 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

Fridays off could be a program killer for small schools. Trying to convince kids to come on their "day off" to rehearse, travel to a football game, and come home late when their buddies that don't participate in band or athletics are out partying or playing video games is a challenge.

The only kids people benefiting from a 4 day week are the kids that don't participate in anything and the teachers that don't sponsor extra curriculars. Coaches, directors, and sponsors will normally still have rehearsals/practices on those dates so those kids just have longer hours. Not to mention the longer hours those coaches, directors, and sponsors will have since school days are longer meaning later practices/rehearsals and likely no extra pay!

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Warhawk on 2/2/2023, 12:53 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

A couple of rural schools have gone with Friday's off, but moved football to Thursday in a move to help attract teachers to a remote location and to be able to get officials for the games.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Me on 2/6/2023, 8:58 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

The teams you're playing have to be on board with Thursday night varsity games. We would be one of only 3 schools in our classification nearby doing 4 day weeks.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Okay... on 2/4/2023, 10:07 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

So what do they do with the JH or JV games that are traditionally on Thursday? Do they play "double headers", or do they not have JV/JH teams (don't laugh...some small schools don't), or do they move the non varsity games to another night?

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by BDSO on 2/4/2023, 7:23 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

Probably what other larger districts do with JV games when the varsity games are on Thursdays. You act like no Varsity games ever happen on Thursdays. I know some schools who have nearly every game on Thursdays. JV games are are on Fridays and even Wednesdays. MS games most likely are Saturday mornings, or even Wednesday after school in our case.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Okay... on 2/6/2023, 6:57 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

No...just that I've never known varsity to play on Thursday (have played a couple on Saturday, though). Hence my question.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Grubbs on 2/7/2023, 8:50 am, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

When I taught in Socorro ISD we had only one stadium with three high schools at the time. We had the occasional Thursday game. Not a fan LOL.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by BDSO on 2/6/2023, 5:39 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

Happens in the larger classifications all the time. In San Antonio (and probably DFW and Houston) varsity games are on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I grew up in San Antonio back in the 80s and we played at least one game on a Thursday every year. This isn't a new concept.

Re: 4-day Week

Posted by Inner-City BD II on 2/6/2023, 3:47 pm, in reply to "Re: 4-day Week"

Look at scheduling in large urban ISDs. Most of those schools regularly play two or three games a year on Thursday nights.

When there are 20+ high schools, and eight stadia, and they're basically all in the same three football conferences with only two or three schools from out of district (which is how UIL does it with large school districts) there are Thursday games every week.

I've had more than one year where we played as many games on Thursday night as on Friday night.

« Back to index

[ The Yellow Board ]