Are Four-Day Weeks Coming to Lubbock Offices and Schools?
The coronavirus pandemic sure has changed the way a lot of work and even think about working. People grew accustomed to working from home, and across the United States we're still seeing some places struggling to lure workers back into the workplace. The trend of working from home was already there, but the pandemic accelerated and normalized it.
The same thing could be said for re-thinking the school week. Since April, numerous school districts around Texas have announced either work sessions for future consideration of four-day school weeks or have completely announced that starting in the next school year they will have four-day school weeks.
So why are schools changing to a shorter week? According to WFAA, there are a number of reasons why:
The Mineral Wells decision came after the Tioga Independent School District, in Grayson County, also held its school board meeting this Monday, approving a four-day school week calendar. The district noted a plethora of reasons why it decided to change for the upcoming school year, including increased time for in-service training, work-life balance, student engagement and retaining teachers.
According to the proposal document, Tioga ISD will be changing its start and end times by 10 and 20 minutes depending on which campuses students attend.
Tioga ISD also noted that the new school year will be three weeks longer and the summer will be 11 weeks – a week less than in 2021.
And it's not just schools that are rethinking the work week. Some businesses and city governments are also looking at the idea of the four day work week. In fact, the City of Keller announced an experimental four-day work schedule beginning next week. City offices will open at 7:30 a.m. and close at 5:30 p.m. The experiment will last four months, then they will evaluate the changes.
So will Lubbock and Lubbock schools see a four-day work week any time soon? It's probably not on the top of the list for city and local school leaders, but as more and more districts move in this direction, don't be surprised to see if they consider it.
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