Following the Covid-19 pandemic, many school districts have faced teacher shortages and budget shortfalls, prompting a growing number of districts to adopt a four-day school week to make teaching more attractive and cut costs. A new study by Aaron Ainsworth and Emily Penner from the University of California, Irvine, and Yujia Liu from the University of Missouri has found that the strategy negatively impacts teacher retention.
The study analyzed administrative data from the Oregon Department of Education, covering public school students and employees from the 2006-07 to 2022-23 school years. Oregon, where districts began adopting four-day weeks in the 1980s, has some of the highest implementation rates in the country. By the 2018-19 school year, 40 percent of Oregon’s school districts had implemented the strategy.
By comparing turnover rates between schools with four- and five-day weeks, the researchers found that teacher turnover increased by 2.3 percentage points immediately following the adoption of the four-day school week. While turnover stabilized after the first year, it surged again five to nine years later, increasing by up to 5 percentage points. The increases in turnover were driven by both teacher attrition and mobility. Younger and more inexperienced teachers were more likely to move between districts, while older and experienced teachers tended to leave the profession.
The impact was relatively consistent across gender, race, and position type, though slightly higher turnover was observed for men, special education teachers, and teachers of color. Importantly, the four-day week did not increase turnover among non-teaching staff.
Although the four-day week has been promoted as a non-monetary benefit to attract and retain educators, the researchers suggest that their findings cast doubt on its long-term effectiveness. They found that over time, salaries in four-day week districts lagged further behind those in five-day districts. Both working conditions and pay are important for teacher retention, and the researchers emphasize that focusing on one without addressing the other is unlikely to reduce turnover in the long term.