4-day school weeks growing in popularity, especially in rural areas

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Northeast of Des Moines in central Iowa, the 400-student Collins-Maxwell Community School District is one of many across the state shifting to a four-day school week.

Like many rural K-12 schools, the district has struggled to find teachers, and it sees the four-day week as a useful recruiting tool. It also wants to curb student absences, which tend to spike on Mondays and Fridays .

The district maintained its traditional five-day calendar in August and September. But from now on, with scattered exceptions, the middle school and high school in the Collins-Maxwell district will be closed Mondays. To meet Iowa’s minimum number of instructional hours, the district will lengthen the other days