Clara City, Minn. (AP) A rural school district in west-central Minnesota wants to keep its four-day week. Some Minnesota districts switched to a four-day schedule during the economic slowdown as a way to save costs. With the financial crisis over, the Minnesota education department is ordering those districts to return to a traditional, five-day week by next fall.
But MacCray schools, as the Maynard-Clara City-Raymond school district is known, want to stick with the four-day week.
The Star Tribune reports the schedule has proved popular with students, parents, teachers and even local businesses, who hire teens to work on their off-day. District officials say they have saved thousands of dollars on administrative costs.
But state education officials say there has been a lack of adequate academic progress in the district.