Rethinking the four-day school week

Study finds 27J schedule change hurt housing market, academics in the district

BY YESENIA ROBLES

Homeowners in the 27J school district might have been better o paying a higher property tax rather than allowing the district to adopt a four-day school week, a new study suggests. e 27J school district, which serves more than 22,600 students this year, is based north of Denver, covering Brighton and parts of Commerce City and ornton. Leaders rolled out the four-day school week in the fall of 2018, after having failed a sixth time to pass a local tax increase to pay teachers more. e authors of the study acknowledge there were limitations in the way they examined student achievement and teacher retention pieces. ey didn’t want to look at years a ected by COVID, so they only examined student achievement data through the 2019-20 school year. For teacher retention data they examined data through the 202021 school year. So it’s possible the

Preliminary results of the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, suggest that home prices su ered and student achievement in the district may have dropped. Teacher retention, which the district cited as the main reason for moving to the four-day school week, may also have decreased, according to the study.

District Superintendent Chris Fiedler disputes the ndings, citing higher-than-ever graduation rates and lower overall teacher turnover.