LAFAYETTE, Ind. — As summer winds down and the clock ticks toward the first day of school, Taylor Csonka is preparing for a year like no other.
“It’s going to be interesting,” said Csonka, the art teacher at Vinton Elementary in Lafayette. “We are starting the four-day school week.”
This school of 400 students will be the first in Indiana to implement a four-day week. Class will be held Monday through Thursday. Students and staff will get Fridays off with a few exceptions for teachers who will have to report for professional development days.
"Our district is offering choice to our families,” principal Cindy Preston said. “And the four-day school week is one of the new choices.”
Preston said other elementary schools in the district offer other specialties, including a balanced calendar, dual language or high ability.
"Like it or not, we are competing with other school districts and private schools and public charter schools,” Lafayette School Corporation Assistant Superintendent Alicia Clevenger said. “So we have to do things to attract people to our district — not only families to come to our schools but prospective employees, too."
The district applied for a flexibility waiver from the Indiana Department of Education and was approved for three years.
The shorter week means longer days. School will start each Monday through Thursday at 8 a.m. and students will be dismissed at 3:45 p.m. In all, it adds up to 64,000 minutes of instruction for the year — more than 10,000 minutes above the state's minimum requirement.
Advocates say longer instruction time will be beneficial for students.
“Instead of having a 90-minute reading block, it's going to be 120 minutes,” Preston said. “So you can go a little deeper with things, and math, instead of being a one hour, it's 90 minutes.”
“I know they're going to love it,” said Mark Richard, pointing to his grandsons who will attend school at Vinton this year.
There are skeptics. Some have complained about having to find and pay for child care on Fridays. Others say they’ll have to juggle multiple schedules with kids in different schools.
But Preston said the local YMCA will offer day care at the school each Friday, and any family can opt out of Vinton and transfer to another school.
A week before the first day back, Preston said nine families had opted out. But 17 other families had opted to transfer their children in from other schools.
“I’m excited for it. We’ve had a ton of teachers who have reached out to me, saying, ‘we are cheering for you, and we want this to work for you,’” Preston said. “I know there are some that have negative ideas about it, but let’s give it a try and see what we can do.”
They all know other schools in other communities will be watching and learning, too.
“It will be a learning experience,” Csonka said. “But that's why we are at school, right?”