An anonymous survey circulating around Evanston is striking a chord with local residents over the pros and cons of a four-day school week, and whether Uinta County School District No. 1 can or should move to that type of schedule.
Ryan Thomas, superintendent for the Uinta County School District No. 1, said he is aware of the survey, but told Cowboy State Daily that the school district has not been approached about it.
“They would have to come with a lot of reasons of why that is advantageous to us,” Thomas said.
Uinta County School District No. 1 Board Chairman David Peterson said a four-day school week for Evanston schools is a subject that’s been brought up numerous times over the past five or six years.
“Now it seems to have a little more traction locally,” he said, adding that nothing has been officially presented to the school board about it.
The Survey
The survey, which seems supportive of a four-day week, consists of 19 questions hitting on topics such as teacher retention, reducing teacher burnout, where to direct perceived savings and extended school days.
According to the survey, all responses will be compiled and analyzed for clear patterns. Results will be made public and presented to the school board, though no official date is listed.
A statement toward the top of the survey reads, “MONEY TALKS: INVEST IN SALARIES, NOT WASTED FRIDAYS."
“Stop wasting money on operational costs for Fridays when 50-60% of students are gone for activities anyway," it says.
Matt Caston, who has owned commercial property in Evanston for about three years and whose children are grown, is opposed to the four-day school week and criticized the survey’s reported sample size of 615 respondents.
The U.S. Census Bureau shows Uinta County School District 1 had a population of 15,066 in 2023, the most recently reported statistic.
“It’s a bit of a shell game,” Caston said. “The problem is not the number of days the kids are going to school. It’s that they’re in a rigid system that is funding-dependent.”
Steve Martin, an alum of Evanston public schools whose children are now in fifth and sixth grades in the school system, supports a four-day school week and completed the survey.
“I just think, for these kids, going to school five days a week is almost like a full-time job. Why don’t we let them be kids?” he said.
One advantage to a four-day week is that kids would have a day to “pursue a passion," Martin said.
A four-day school schedule would also be beneficial for work/home balance, he said, allowing parents more time to be with their kids during their formative years.
“The majority of the time you have with your kids is during their school years,” he said. “Let’s take advantage of the time we have with them.”
Thomas, on the other hand, is opposed to a four-day school week.
His main problem with the idea is that one less day in school means that, “You’d lose 20% of your instructional time.”
“We’re doing everything we can to protect our instructional time,” he said. “We need more instructional time, not less.”
Support staff would lose 20% of their salary, he added, which would knock them below the threshold to receive paid insurance from the school district.
The anonymous survey suggests numerous pros to a four-day school week, including better teacher retention, improved academic quality, more family time and fewer conflicts with activity scheduling.
Where It's Happening
Of Wyoming’s 48 school districts, 26 operate on four-day school weeks.
Earlier this month, the Lincoln County School District No. 2 School Board unanimously approved a motion directing the administration to create a hybrid four- or five-day calendar for Star Valley schools.
The hybrid schedule would go into effect for the 2026-2027 school year, said school district administrative assistant Justie Hillstead.
Uinta County School District No. 6 in Lyman transitioned to a four-day school week in 2008, said Superintendent Damian Smith, adding, “It was a new idea back then.”
The purpose was not to save money, he said. Instead, it was meant to boost teacher morale and ease pressure on families, many of whom traveled long distances to watch their children play sports and took their younger children with them.
“In our small school district, if your older brother is playing basketball in Lovell, you as the younger sibling are going to go with your parents to Lovell for the game,” Smith said.
The move was controversial at the time, and “the community was split somewhat,” Smith said. Adding to that controversy is the school district chose not to cut teachers’ pay.
“All our teachers got a significant pay raise, in effect,” Smith said.
Now, he said, Lyman’s teacher salaries are very competitive.
Smith acknowledged that the four-day shift hurt the school’s support staff, with bus drivers, food service workers and paraprofessionals being paid for four days of work instead of five.
“I think if we did it now, we would have to look at that,” he said, “with decreasing enrollment and the way the legislature is approaching funding.
The four-day school schedule also meant longer school days in Lyman, which could be tough on elementary school kids. The transition was difficult for families with two working parents, who had to find a way to care for their children on Fridays.
A potential advantage to a four-day school week is that teachers and students could schedule doctors’ and other appointments on Fridays. But, Smith said, “To say that all of our families get their doctors’ appointments on Fridays is not possible.”
The community, he said, starts switching its schedule to align with the school schedule.
“If the eye doctor’s kid is off on Friday, then the eye doctor will take off Friday, too,” Smith said.
MiKayla Huffaker was in ninth grade in Lyman when the school district moved to a four-day-a-week schedule.
She told Cowboy State Daily she grew to love the four-day school week because she was a cheerleader and often missed school on Friday, anyway. The school stayed open on Fridays, though, for tutoring and study help. On Fridays she wasn’t traveling, she said she could go to school and catch up on homework.
“I thought it was super beneficial to have that day to study or spend time with family,” she said.
Huffaker now lives in Evanston and has a kindergartener in the public school. She says she saw the anonymous survey on Facebook and participated.
As a parent, Huffaker understands the struggle working parents could face if their children do not go to school on Fridays. But, she said, “As a parent, you’re always trying to figure out something.”
According to Smith, Lyman schools, now 17 years in, run smoothly on the four-day school week.
“The first year you go through it, it’s hard,” he said. “But kids get used to the schedule.”
So do parents and community members, he said.
“If we got somehow off the four-day schedule, I would get run out of town as the superintendent,” he said. “It’s what we do here. We just live it.”
Board Of Education Standards
In March of this year, the Wyoming State Board of Education (WSBE) updated its policy on school schedules. According to the policy, pupil-teacher yearly contact time may not be less than 450 hours for Kindergarten, 900 hours for elementary school, 950 hours for middle school/junior high and 1,000 hours for high school.
“Regardless of how many days they’re in session, they have to show that they’re meeting this number of hours,” said WSBE chair Dr. Mark Mathern.
Schedules proposed to the state board must include no fewer than 175 days of pupil-teacher contact time.
As for how a four-day school week impacts student achievement, the data is mixed, Mathern said.
In Lyman, Smith said graduation rates, attendance rates and academic performance don’t change.
“[Success] has to do with the teacher in the classroom,” he said. “If you have an awesome teacher, kids are going to excel.”
Mathern said that for some communities, a four-day school week is essential because so many kids are engaged in other activities. But, he said, “it really depends on the community."
“The board puts so much credence in what the community is saying,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Thomas echoed Mathern about community input.
“[The decision] has to be based on your local community,” he said.
Fifty percent of Uinta County School District No. 1 students are on the free and reduced lunch program, a statistic that Thomas said points to the area’s high poverty rate.
“There is no answer to poverty except for higher level instruction,” he said.
Thomas said he hopes the survey is resulting in productive dialogue, with people speaking out with positives and negatives of a four-day school week.
The Uinta County School District No. 1 School Board will next meet at 6 p.m. Dec. 9.
