The effects of 4-day school weeks on employee retention in Oregon schools

By Susan Davis, Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University

A working paper from The Annenberg Institute at Brown University examined the effects of the four-day school week on employee retention in Oregon, a state with widespread four-day school weeks. Increasingly popular since the pandemic, the four-day school week has been used as a strategy to improve teacher recruitment and retention and is now implemented  by 2,100 schools across  850 districts. The four-day week typically has longer schooldays than the five-day school week, with either Monday or Friday off.

Researchers looked at administrative records between 2007 and 2023, during which  more than 100 Oregon schools adopted the schedule. They correlated  the adoption of the four-day week with employee turnover and found mixed results. The adoption of the four-day week led to an immediate increase in teacher turnover by 2%, with no significant effects on teacher retention 1-4 years post-adoption. However, five years after adoption, teacher turnover rates were 4% higher, largely due to increased retirement rates among older teachers and higher transfer rates among mid-career teachers.. It is of note that teacher salaries, which are already low in the five-day school week model, are even lower in the four-day school week model. Importantly, there were no effects on the retention of non-teaching staff.

These results are important considerations for districts considering adopting a four-day week as a solution to teacher and staff turnover, especially when the goal is long-term employee retention.

Click here for previous summaries of evidence about the four-day school week from BEIB.