To address staff absenteeism and improve teacher well-being, an Ohio superintendent decided to try a new approach for his district: a four-day school week.
Teachers and staff at the North College Hill City school district work on a four-day blended learning schedule in which Mondays are self-guided prep days for teachers where they can go over lesson plans, hold meetings for staff and different teams, and grade or make phone calls to prepare for the week ahead. The rest of the week is business as usual, with the same daily instruction time as before.
“I don’t know if it was inspiration or desperation,” said Superintendent Eugene Blalock.
Two years ago, the district in the Cincinnati suburb with about 1,400 students, was struggling with staff burnout and absenteeism. Substitutes were even more difficult to find, despite an increase in pay, leaving existing staff to try to fill in for their colleagues on top of their normal duties. Blalock said the ensuing burnout led some of the district’s teachers to leave the profession altogether.
A rise in teacher absences is a challenge that 72 percent of U.S. public schools reported after the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2021-22 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“And I knew that personally, I needed to do something for my small district,” he said. “But could I do something on a larger scale that might affect the teaching profession as a whole?”
As they wrap up the second school year under the blended learning schedule, Blalock emphasized that the change improved his staff’s satisfaction, as well as the district’s ability to recruit and retain teachers. In one survey Blalock conducted, he said 100% of respondents reported the four-day school week had improved their work-life balance. According to Blalock, it also significantly reduced teacher absenteeism.
Research on how four-day school weeks affect teacher turnover, however, shows mixed results. In some studies, districts that adopted a four-day school week saw increases in teacher turnover. In another, it decreased. A recent paper from a researcher at the National Council on Teacher Quality suggests that four-day school weeks may not affect turnover at all.
But though further studies are needed, teachers across the country say this policy has appeal. According to a 2024 EdWeek Research Center survey, 66 percent of participants said that they would be either slightly or much more willing to work in a district with a four-day school week.
And teachers at North College Hill have gotten on board.
“Weekends are mine,” said Renee Bush, a 3rd grade teacher at North College Hill Elementary School. “There’s no Sunday scaries that you, you know, have to get all this stuff done when you know you have Monday to work things through.”
When Bush heard about Blalock’s proposal to shift the school schedule, her immediate thought went to the students. Who would look after students whose parents needed child care? How would students receive breakfast and lunch? What would happen in the classroom if students had to get 100 percent of the required content in 80 percent of the time?
After conversations and town halls with district staff, teachers, and parents, the solutions came together. School meals would still be available for students on Mondays. For the district’s K-8 parents who needed child care, paraprofessionals were trained to watch students at school. At the high school level, Blalock and his team made connections with local businesses to provide job training, internships, and career development opportunities in construction and nursing.
“It has been great to see the students learn about new careers and even move after graduation, going into these careers,” Blalock said. “We have a number of students in construction who graduated and now they’re working with union jobs.”
As the blended schedule continues into its third year, Blalock is excited to expand the jobs program. More importantly, he’s excited to see teachers enjoy their careers again.
“I’m betting on them to do the work that they love to do, that they live to do. And not only that, now they have the time to properly prepare to do it at a higher level,” Blalock said. “I’m betting that what we’re doing with this four-day [schedule] will make a difference not only in their lives, but also the lives of our students.”