Twin Rivers R-X Four day school week explored

Twin Rivers R-X schools are asking for parent and teacher input about the possibility of a four-day school week.

Teachers and parents are being asked to fill out a survey the district has handed out. Superintendent Jeremy Seibert said this is preliminary research to explore the possibility. The schedule for next school year does not need to be set until April 2020, he said, which means they have time to seriously consider the questions, concerns and positives of making the move.

There has been an increase over the last several years in the number of schools participating in a four-day school week. This has been seen in multiple states around the nation and Missouri has been part of that.

Seibert said he’s talked to the superintendents at two districts who have made the switch and been told the two main questions community members had were relating to child care and meals for the day off.

“Both of them that emailed me back said day care on that extra day off is for young students, older students can typically stay by themselves,” he said. “Also, all rural districts have a lot of low-income students, so that would be one day a week that the school wouldn’t provide breakfast and lunch.”

The main hope with the possible move, he said, would be for the district to save money. The district’s budget was in the red last year, which has Seibert looking into ways to keep that from happening again.

By changing to a four-day week, the district would have fewer costs, even though they’d be expected to have longer days. Seibert said there would be about 20 fewer school days during the year, which could help them save on operation and food costs.

The meals are one of the concerns Seibert expects parents to raise, particularly low-income families, which means it’s also a concern he’s considered.

“We have a backpack program that we could look to expand if we were to implement (four days a week),” Seibert said. “We send backpacks with food home to needy families.”

Seibert said the district talked to parents about the survey during parent-teacher conferences last week and handed them out for parents to fill out and return. The main questions are whether the parents would be like a four-day school week and what concerns they might have. He said they’ve had several turned in both online and in paper form, but are still going through them and waiting for more to be returned.

Seibert said the most important thing for families to remember now is a four-day school week is not the plan for the next school year. The district is merely looking into the possibility of it, gauging response for the community and identifying where the positives and negatives of it would be.

“We’re not anywhere close to implementing,” he said. “We’re strictly in the infancy stages of gathering info. It’s just one of the things I wanted to explore. I don’t know how anybody feels about it or how the board feels about it yet.”