Due to the rise in costs for school districts over the years, public schools in the area have been searching for ways to save without hindering the quality of education. The Jefferson-Morgan and McGuffey school districts are exploring different ways of accomplishing that goal, possibly increasing other school benefits along the way.

The two school districts are considering implementing a four-day school week instead of the common five-day week schedule.

Joseph Orr, superintendent of the Jefferson-Morgan School district, said authorities at the school noticed a trend in schools on the western side of the country through educational journals and wanted to see if it could be applied to schools in Pennsylvania.

“When we started doing the initial research, we started seeing some things that did show that there’s potential for large savings without the reduction of educational experiences for kids. It’s just something we felt we needed to start to research,” Orr said.

Orr said the three costs that would be reduced the most include transportation, food service and energy consumption. Although a four-day school week implies that teachers and other faculty staff may not have as many billable hours as now, Orr said the implementation wouldn’t affect the number of hours. Instead, the number of work hours teachers have on the four days of school would increase, to balance it out..

Dr. Erica Kolat, superintendent for the McGuffey School District, said their school is also exploring the idea of implementing the shorter school week. The initial research, she said, includes several benefits, such as cost reduction, improved attendance by students and staff, improved morale and increased interest for employment at the school.

Although the idea has a lot of assets, the schools will need to make sure students and parents are on board with the idea.

“Based on initial informal feedback, some like the idea and others still have a lot of questions, which is understandable,” Kolat said.

After developing a proposal and drafting a plan, Kolat said they will be able to better inform student’s families about the idea.

Orr said there are only a few potential roadblocks to executing the proposal. They would need to get all parties involved on board and the individual teacher’s contracts would need to be updated. Perhaps the greatest barrier involves parents who need their children in school the extra day, so they can work. Orr said the districts would need to have a “team approach to tackle that kind of an issue.”

If the research continues to show mainly positive potential results and the school board approves the idea, Orr and Kolat said the plan could be in place  for both the school districts as early as the 2020 school year.

“If the information leads us in that direction, we’d want to talk to our public and our school board,” Orr said. “It protects our tax-payers, but it also has to be something that would not compromise the delivery of instruction or the education to the students in our school district.”