The Push For A 4-Day School Week Is Rising, But What About Working Parents?

There is simply nothing better than a three-day weekend. A day for fun, a day for rest, and a day to get done all of the things you didn’t have time for in the week. For decades, it’s been sort of a running joke that we should make three-day weekends the norm, especially for schools, and now it feels more possible than ever.

In a report conducted by the Guardian, the proposal of a four-day week for schools was met with an overwhelmingly positive response. Parents cited everything from their children’s mental health to not worrying so much about absences as reasons for the four-day week to work. Teachers even loved the idea, noting that if the fifth day of the week were simply a teacher workday, it would free up their weekends from school and teaching tasks, allowing them to actually get a much-needed (and deserved) break.

It sounds wonderful. Enough studies have shown that pressure on kids to constantly perform often does the opposite, and even on our best weeks, I know not all of us are giving it our all every single day.

So for a four-day school week to work, there would have to be pretty big changes. Extra time added to the beginning or the end of the day — roughly 50 minutes — would help offset one missing day of instruction, reported the NWEA. Kids would have more free time for extracurriculars (and simply being a kid) with a three-day weekend, and research has found that schools that operate on a four-day week report lower bullying rates and an increase in the amount of sleep students get.

Outside of students, some districts report saving $57,000 per district — which is quite a bit — while implementing a four-day school week. In rural areas where teacher retention and hiring rates are low, it also helps offset some of the stress there.

It sounds great. But where would this kind of proposal leave working parents?

It’s no secret that working parents struggle with school schedules. Between kids getting sick, the school start and end times not aligning with work start and end times, and all of the breaks, parents are stressed trying to both do their jobs and parent their kids. Even experts have argued that a four-day workweek could be the solution — and a four-day school week might pair nicely with that.

A four-day workweek here in America has been talked about for decades. After 2020, it seemed like an even more viable solution given the increase in employees working from home, and the idea has continued to grow. An American Psychological Association survey in 2024 found that 22% of respondents said their workplace offered a four-day workweek, up from 14% in 2022.

Research seems to support the potential benefits. With both sociologists and economists weighing in, studies have found that a four-day workweek would not only increase employee satisfaction but also improve efficiency.

When you think about it, very few of us spend our entire 40 hours doing only work-related tasks, and the four-day workweek can look different for everyone. Some work 10-hour days, some work 8-hour days — it all just depends. Research dating back to 1999 found that reducing work hours over the week increased employee happiness but did not affect productivity or absenteeism.

Even without a “proper” four-day workweek, people have started making their own. “Bare Minimum Mondays” became a trend a couple of years ago, with many taking to social media to share that they use Mondays as an easy workday, often clearing their calendars of meetings and doing as little work as possible. The idea is to ease into the workweek and to take off some of the pressure.

And while “Quiet Quitting” has had numerous definitions, at the end of the day, it makes complete sense to only do the work you are paid and contracted to do, rather than stressing yourself out over going above and beyond (especially if you’re unsatisfied with your job).

A four-day school week seems great — but if we don’t make four-day workweeks an option, too, we’ll all be stuck in the same boat we’ve been in for years. Between school pick-ups and drop-offs, school programs, teacher workdays, school breaks — parents everywhere struggle with being there for their kids and not taking too much time off work. And as a push for “in-office” workplaces continues, it feels like a four-day workweek may be farther away than a four-day school week.