4-Day Weeks Bring Smiles in Rural Schools, But Will They Work in Big Cities?

About 1 in 5 of Oklahoma's school districts have switched to a four-day week to deal with budget cuts and recruit quality teachers amid a nationwide teacher shortage and pay crisis, NBC News reported.

"Just because we've been doing it one way for a long time doesn't mean we necessarily need to keep doing it that way," said Dr. Bob Gragg, superintendent of White Rock School in the tiny town of McCloud.

A school district near Denver will this fall become the first large urban district in the United States to shave a day off its schedule. Parents, teachers, administrators and scholars say the shift brings better performance, attendance and morale.

But larger metropolitan areas could see disruptive knock-on effects as parents look for child care and older kids have an extra day in their weekend to tempt them into trouble, critics and education experts say.

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