Four-Day School Week: High Gas Prices Force Rural School Districts To Shorten School Week

High gas prices, which continue to rise even as oil prices fall, are forcing rural school districts to switch to a four-day school week in order to cut back on busing:

We've all heard of schools closing because of heavy snowfall, but what about high gas prices?

That's just what is happening in some of the nation's most rural and remote school districts. As the price of gas continues to climb, they're shutting their doors one day a week in order to save on heating and busing costs.

The MACCRAY School District in western Minnesota voted earlier this month to switch to a four-day school week beginning in September. The decision to close the schools on Mondays will mean slightly longer hours on the other four days, but it will also mean a three-day weekend, every week.

"We thought about going to a four-day school week because we needed to save money. We just don't have money and we would like to try to save as many positions as we can in district," said superintendent Greg Schmidt.

Comments

[scottyboi84]

06:47 AM on 06/01/2008

This is sad... Isn't anyone in the government also watching these crisis'? This is truly a sign of the times when even education has to take a backseat to the high gas prices. I'm sure the school boards in these towns are torn about these decisions, but what else can they do? They're probably only allocated a certain budget for the year, and if they have to spend a lot more for gas that means they have to spend less on things like salaries for the teachers, supplies for the students, and what about school lunches? Can they still afford food costs at the same time as struggling with the gas prices for school buses? Food has also become more expensive, especially milk which all schools promote. So, what else does America have to sacrifice to the Big Oil companies, whose profits are in record numbers? Next up, schools will have to choose between feeding their children or having an arts program, which is usually the first to go, especially over sports. When the purse strings get tight, everyone takes it out on art, of course because no child needs to learn about art. This country makes me ashamed to live here, where education has to be sacrificed in the name of capitalism. What happened to Democracy?

[Larry of Corrales]

03:33 PM on 05/31/2008

Sounds more like the teachers want a three day weekend.

[GeorgiaOrwell]

02:30 AM on 06/01/2008

Yeah, that's it! Blame the teachers for the energy greed crisis! Why are teachers always the first ones blamed for everything? In a profession that is seriously underpaid, in a profession where teachers are often disrespected and assaulted physically and verbally on a daily basis by many people's little darlings, let's blame the teachers for the skyrocketing gas prices. Why not blame the teachers for the war in Iraq, for the deaths and suicides of many of our troops, for the Bush admin's war crimes, the plundering of the environment, for a new-world order (we are now 1939 Germany), and every other conceivable ill facing our nation.

Talk about ignorant and proud of it!!!

[Trilby]

06:10 PM on 05/30/2008

If they shorten the school week to 4 days they have to shorten the workweek too. Which is fine with me. When I was a kid, my teachers told us when we grew we'd have a four-day workweek, thanks to increased productivity and the natural progression. And I have always felt cheated!

[blueshield]

04:46 PM on 05/30/2008

Gas prices would not be so high if America's energy companies weren't prevented from drilling and mining in school yards by selfish and misguided extremists. American reserves hold all the energy the country needs - it's time we increased tax subsidies and other incentives and give our energy companies free reign to get it anyway they can, so they can sell it to us for as much as they can.

Until we decide to truly put profits ahead of pupils, we're going to have a lot of poorly educated hungry workers competing for fewer and fewer jobs and unable to drive to work.

President Bush needs your support for his program to guarantee our energy future: No Carbon Left Behind. Because A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.

[lisakaz2]

10:29 PM on 05/30/2008

What makes you think these greedy companies will sell "to us"? This is HARDLY a long term solution. How can We the People help students if profits come first?

[ddharder]

03:51 AM on 05/31/2008

LOL

[avraamjack]

01:54 PM on 05/30/2008

.
Everybody should get a 4 day week.
.
It is a cost free way to provide a vast improvement in the quality of life.
.
.

[Enid]

11:09 AM on 05/30/2008

My daughter a excellent teacher per all the nice letters and kind expressions of her students and parents and proformance reviews..

She is a wage slave just like most of us.

She ues her own money often on "her kids" their education.

Teachers do not get payed for summer vacation's school system hear offer pay divided up over 12 months or just the mouths teaching. Same yearly salary either way. Further its a one year contract with the school and in salary not hourly wage. Per hour pay drops big time with these kind of contracts.
Teacher are blamed for far more than most (all) professions. Just dealing with the parents of the students is a job 90% of us would brake under for get the teaching.

As my daughter says "where would you be without the teachers in your life?".

My garbage man makes more than many teachers and with far less crap to deal with and no homework.

[ramal]

11:33 PM on 05/29/2008

Can anyone anywhere think of a bigger waste of time, energy and money than American high school? It has become nothing more than a very expensive baby sitting service which will only become costlier. After the eighth grade all high school instruction should be home schooling via the internet. Make grades one through six four days a week and grades seven and eight three. Society would save billions and would be absolutely no worse off.

[WIpatriot]

06:43 AM on 05/30/2008

I can not imagine some of the stupid people home-schooling their kids when they can even run their own lives. Yes, I'm elitist.

[BBackSoon]

09:42 AM on 05/30/2008

I think with the horrible job our schools do with educating our kids, NCLB, that the life lesions they learn from having to deal with all the other people at school is very important. Going to school forms your interpersonal skills.

[edpell]

10:24 PM on 05/29/2008

Here in Rhinebeck, New York, we spend $29,704 per student. I would say it is the tax payers that need help. In fact, if we just canceled school and saved the money we could give each student $386,000 at age 18. That is without assuming interest gained over the 13 school years. At $20,000 per year (again not assuming any interest) they could live for 19 years on this. I bet they could learn a skill on their own, start a business or two, etc., in the 31 years from kindergarten to age 37.

[UnbiasView]

10:35 PM on 05/29/2008

Agreed, stupid people (liberals) think that the more money you put into education the better results which is proven wrong time and time again.

[chronic]

10:42 PM on 05/29/2008

Actually, dumb red state bush supporting rural voters are dumb anyways. So why waste money trying to educate the willfully "ignorant'?

[WIpatriot]

06:43 AM on 05/30/2008

You are living proof of that....

[ailbhe]

11:48 PM on 05/29/2008

It would be cheaper to send them to private school!

[LeonBNJ]

08:45 PM on 05/29/2008

We starve school systems in this country. Many of these rural school systems have no practical way unless they raise taxes by Hundred's of $$$'s from each property owner to pay for higher fuel cost for busses and the buildings themself. I suspect that many smaller school systems will have to drop interscholastic sports and other programs due to fuel costs as fuel prices spiral up and incomes go down.

[UnbiasView]

09:15 PM on 05/29/2008

What drugs are you on? We don't starve school systems, take a look at your state's budget and see how much goes to the schools. The problem is in the allocation of funds and the people running the schools.

It is the single biggest expense in every state and the education keeps getting worse as we throw more money at it.

Per pupil spending is usually around 10k per year . . . you could attend 1000s of colleges at that cost.

[WIpatriot]

06:45 AM on 05/30/2008

Name 10 of that 1000 you cite, troll.

[turkeyfish]

02:58 AM on 06/01/2008

I think a lot of these costs could go down dramatically if we can get corporations out of the educational system and get the bulk of the money to 1) teachers, 2) proper facilities, especially for science education, and 3) student materials.

[naschkatze]

08:38 PM on 05/29/2008

In my town they need to consolidate the routes so that the buses that there are are more full. I see several buses with maybe 5 kids each. What a waste.

[turkeyfish]

02:39 AM on 06/01/2008

One might have thought that as they approached the end of a route, they might actually not have any students in them at all.

[Krikkit]

07:57 PM on 05/29/2008

My Gawd, what about working parents? They not only have to pay the extra in gasoline, now they have to provide babysitting one day a week.

Something has got to be done to lower the gas prices, or to subsidize fuel costs for the schools.

[UnbiasView]

09:16 PM on 05/29/2008

It doesn't matter either way, they either need a babysitter or the school will hold a gun to their heads raising their property taxes.

Either way they are going to pay.

[wolfgangmo]

08:25 AM on 05/30/2008

Gun?

WFT are you injecting today Unbias Spew?

[turkeyfish]

02:55 AM on 06/01/2008

In most communities schools are funded through property tax levys that are voted on in elections. This generally tends to result in under-funded educational systems, because their are so many who feel as you do that the schools are somehow extorting you.

Perhaps, you might direct some of your engergy toward volunteering your time to the kids in your community than railing against schools.

You also have to keep in mind, the costs of not spening money on education. Usually, it is much higher, particularly if you can get kids on the right track very early (preschool ages and early grade schools). This is a point Obama stresses a lot and with good reason, these are the ages, which all studies show, kids are actually doing the most learning and their brains are actually growing and maturing.

[mlaiuppa]

07:23 PM on 05/29/2008

Since the business world these students will enter may likely have a 4 day work week, this gets them accustomed to longer work days. A 10 hour/4 day work week is already happening with some small businesses.

And students with internet won't miss anything. Many community colleges and universities are offering online courses. They can get AP courses and other supplemental classes not offered in their rural schools online.

[turkeyfish]

02:49 AM on 06/01/2008

One of the primary purposes and benefits of a strong system of public school is that it teaches children, from an early age, how to behave with and get along with others. Admittedly, many American schools have horrendous behavioral problems, but this is largely a reflection of values children learn at home and bring with them to school. The sense of isolation and "everyone for themselves-ism" which seem more and more to represent one of the fundamental tenants of contemporary republicanism, will be overwhelming if we go to fully "on-line schools" and private education for the well off.

Some kids actually need teachers to show and teach them things in person. Not everyone is a Frederick Gauss, who was doing the accounting for his father' s business at the age of two.

However, I do agree that if we made a major investment in fully high-speed video conferencing in perhaps available to kids, who couldn't afford it at home, but say in distributed hubs, then many besides teachers could go on-line and interact with students, so that they could be exposed to and learn much more their communities at large.

[sweetchuckd]

07:16 PM on 05/29/2008

This story was featured on http://detentionslip.org! It seems schools across the country are doing everything they can to save money. Check out the site for more weird stories like this one.

[DMcD]

06:42 PM on 05/29/2008

Clarification (when comparing to the previous posts) ;

I'm referring to the 10 hour day / 4 day work-week. (still 40 hours).

[DMcD]

06:38 PM on 05/29/2008

This is what "we all" should be doing --------- a 20% savings in real terms ---- acheivable "right now".

Besides , the longer weekends would be a nice bonus.

Everybody wins !!

[vippy]

11:17 AM on 05/30/2008

People in retail and food already do that, free of charge. So sad, how without unions we make
employees count their registers after their time to get off because we are so short on personnel
and customers want to get waited on and we have to do with less hours. I see in the future,
there won't be any human touch in a store, we expect customers to open the front door and
just throw in their money. This way we could reduce our personnel cost drastically, which we are
told is the highest deduction in our operating statement LOLOLOLOL.