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MARTENSDALE, Iowa — Another central Iowa school district is considering a move to a 4-day school week.

Martensdale-St. Mary’s superintendent, Bill Watson, presented a new proposal to a large group of district parents on Wednesday. He told them something needed to be done to attract new teachers and retain current ones.

“We’ve lost 31 teachers in the last three years,” Watson said. “Some have retired, some have left the profession, but most have left for neighboring districts that pay more.”

To add insult to injury, Martensdale-St. Mary’s has also been losing students, which means that raising salaries is not an option.

Watson said that while the state has seen a few other small, rural districts adopt four-day school weeks in recent years, he was slow to warm up to the idea.

“Two years ago I would have told you it was crazy,” he said. “A year ago when I was hired to come in here in July it wasn’t on my radar. It really wasn’t on my radar until September when we started to look at things. I can tell you I have a growing level of comfort with it. I think the big question is ‘can we serve our kids in the classroom?’ And I think the data would support that yes, we can.”

Districts like Cardinals, Waco, and Murray have gone to four-day weeks and have said the structure has both appealed to teachers and improved student attendance and performance.

Under the current proposal, Martensdale-St. Mary’s would add 55 minutes of class time to each school day, and remove either Friday or Monday from the school week. The change would remove 22 working days for teachers, though the school year would still begin and end at the same times.

Watson said the reception from teachers thus far has been positive.

“We did survey our teachers in early November,” he said, “and the response was overwhelmingly in favor of a four-day week. They did have some concerns, and they’re concerns that rest with kids, concerns about academic achievement, concerns with childcare–and those are all things that we’re addressing.”

Special education teacher, Jessica Iverson, says while she has concerns about the four-day week as both an educator and a mother, she thinks it would appeal to teachers looking for more flexibility in their lives.

“From the people I’ve talked to I think would,” she said. “And I also think it seems like more and more schools are considering this so are we gonna be on the cutting edge of something? Is this gonna be the norm in five years? I don’t know.”

The idea seems to be spreading quickly. The Saydel district announced earlier this month it was looking into a four-day week for next year. The Murray district employed the schedule this year, and Watson tells WHO 13 that there are at least three other southern Iowa school districts considering a move to a four-day week.

It’s an idea these smaller, rural districts simply have to consider as they continue to battle declining enrollment and a teaching profession that has been burned out by difficult parents, unruly students, and understaffed faculties.

“Ten years ago just for a PE teacher, for example, you might have 100 applications,” Watson said. “There are districts in southern Iowa right now that have those positions unfilled because there just aren’t teachers out there.“

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