CRYSTAL CITY, Mo.—As the 2023-2024 school year gets rolling in Missouri next week, the number of school districts moving to a four-day school week is growing. The Independence School District, among the state’s top 20 districts in student population, is the the latest.

In the St. Louis region, one of the area’s smallest districts begins its fourth year under the four day approach, under a new superintendent.

Dr. Crystal Reiter came to Crystal City Schools in Jefferson County after administrative stints with the Normandy Schools Collaborative where she served last year as the interim superintendent and before that in Hazelwood.

“This is new to me,” Reiter, a Cape Girardeau native said in her office inside the high school, a few feet from the front steps where Crystal City native Bill Bradley announced his run for the White House in 1999. 

The district’s roughly 510 students are in class Tuesday through Friday. School days last about 40 minutes longer than they did in the 2019-2020 school year, the last one before the switch, which was not driven by the COVID pandemic.

“It was a lot of uncertainty at the beginning. I know we did a lot of looking into it myself and some others, looking to see how it'd been implemented in other districts in other states, things like that,” said Stephen Eisenbeis, an eight-year veteran who teaches high school social studies and some college level classes, in addition to coaching football and basketball.

What did they find?

The districts that made the switch didn’t go back.

Reiter said she didn’t focus much of her attention on the four day move as she made her own move to the district but said so far, it doesn’t appear to have made an impact one way or another in student performance. Given the pandemic’s impact on learning, it could take several more years to gauge it. She said teacher response has been supportive.

“Teachers seem to appreciate the four days so I think it's a plus for Crystal City to be able to provide that and I think it helps us to keep our staff as well,” she said.

“We're fully staffed. There are no concerns at all at this point so we're pretty fortunate. I haven't always worked in school districts where we've been that fortunate so I would say that we're very fortunate that we have a full staff starting out.”

Brantley Lohkamp, a junior high school social studies teacher in his second year in Crystal City after time in the Parkway School District, said his first reaction at the time was shock.

“I thought that things were maybe going to be a little bit different… things were going to be more condensed but really things flowed really well. Students seem to be more engaged in classes throughout the four days a week.” The new schedule means teachers see students every day they’re in school, as opposed to block scheduling plans that might rotate classes three times a week.

The longer school day means after-school activities and practices now go later into the day as well, but Eisenbeis says people have adjusted to it.

Teachers use Mondays for grading and class planning time. One Monday each month is designated for professional development. In other districts, those development days are built into the schedule as a day off or a half-day for students.

The district offers daycare services on Mondays for families who need it. Eisenbeis said families are encouraged to use Mondays as a day to schedule doctor’s appointments and other things that might normally force an absence.

Districts have moved to four-day weeks because of budget constraints or teacher shortages in recent years. State lawmakers proposed legislation in this past session that would require five-day weeks, with some exceptions, or would allow students to transfer out of them. The ideas did not advance to the Governor’s desk.

For Reiter, it isn’t about the number of days. It’s about what students and teachers are getting out of the days they have.

“In some school districts where I've been we've talked about and actually have had Saturday school for students and so again it's not always about the amount of time time that you have, it's how you're using the time to grow students on their path in their learning so I would say that's most important,” she said.