Whether the Independence School District can keep its four-day school week after this year is up to voters on Nov. 4.
A Missouri law passed last year requires certain school districts to get voter approval to implement a four-day week. Beginning with the 2026-27 academic year, Independence will need that approval to keep its shorter schedule, which it’s had for two years.
Jon Turner, an associate professor at Missouri State University who researches the four-day school week, said other suburban school districts are watching the vote’s outcome.
If Independence receives overwhelming community support for the four-day week, Turner said it will give those districts more encouragement to consider the schedule.
“If it comes out with a negative vote, and they're not getting community support, that in itself may shut down a lot of school districts,” Turner said.
Just one other school district in the state has put the issue before voters. Crystal City residents overwhelmingly supported the four-day week — but with just over 500 students, the school district is much smaller than Independence and in a rural area south of St. Louis.
That makes it more difficult to compare to a suburban school district like Independence, which serves nearly 14,000 students.
“The context is just so much different as far as the makeup of the community, the availability of child care (and) other variables that may impact a person's view about the four-day school week,” Turner said.
A new Missouri law impacts only certain districts
If a school district is located in a city with more than 30,000 residents, or is in Jackson, Clay, St. Louis, Jefferson and St. Charles counties, the new Missouri law requires it to ask voters before adopting or continuing a four-day week.
School districts that receive approval to make the switch will still have to ask voters every 10 years to continue the schedule.
Turner said lawmakers initially wanted to subject all of the state’s school districts to voter approval when shifting to the shortened school week. But legislators narrowed which districts the law would affect after pushback from rural school leaders.
The Independence School District filed a lawsuit last fall that could overturn the state law, which it argued is unconstitutional. It said the law only applied to certain districts and didn’t justify why all districts weren’t included.
The judge denied the school district’s request in September, ruling that the General Assembly is “not required to give specific rational bases for legislation.” It noted that some legislators may have made the distinction based on differences between urban, suburban and rural communities including child care needs on the fifth day when students wouldn’t be in class.
Other districts impacted by the state law must ask their communities by the next school year to start or continue a four-day week.
Grappling with a statewide teacher shortage
The Independence board of education voted in December 2022 to move to a four-day school week to help recruit and retain teachers amid a chronic shortage of teachers and other workers across the state.
The district’s then-superintendent, Dale Herl, said the district achieved its goal with a 360% increase in applicants. A study from the Policy Research in Missouri Education Center found nearly two-thirds of teachers who applied that first year said the change was one of their top three priorities.
Nearly a third of the state’s school districts participated in a four-day week in the 2024-25 school year, but the majority are small and located in rural areas.
But Turner said the state’s school districts, including Independence, did not set out with the goal of switching to the four-day week. He said it’s a strategy for school districts to attract and keep teachers when resources are already limited.
Missouri lags far behind other states on teacher salaries and spending on public schools, so districts rely heavily on local sources like property taxes to fund classrooms.
“It is a symptom of these other things that they're trying to deal with: the teacher shortage, namely, but the pay and equity and resource inequity is the other thing,” Turner said.
The Independence board of education said in a statement supporting a “yes” vote for the November ballot that student growth and teacher retention have improved since adopting the new schedule.
However, the shortened week has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers worried about families without child care on the extra day off and constituents who didn’t feel their voice was heard when the school district made the switch.
There’s also no definitive answers on whether the four-day week improves student learning or teacher retention.
Some Independence families shared with KCUR that the extra day off improved students’ mental health and gave them extra time to catch up on homework. Others found students tired from longer school days and lacking support and activities when they’re out of school.
Board member Denise Fears said at the October meeting that the four-day week has been effective but the district must ensure every student is successful, regardless of the number of school days.
“Is (the) four-day perfect? Absolutely not. There are challenges. Child care for working parents, fatigue for students, food insecurities, to name a few,” Fears said. “We must as a district continue to assess and make adjustments no matter how many days of school there are in a week.”
Other school districts watching the Independence vote
Turner said some school districts put the brakes on exploring a four-day week when the state law was passed. That attitude could become more widespread for suburban districts if the Independence vote fails, but Turner said he doesn’t anticipate it impacting rural school districts.
If any rural districts have to return to a five-day week, he said they’ll lose teachers to higher-paying schools.
“If we go back to everybody's on a five-day week, now we're back within the context of where a rural school teacher may be making $20,000 and $30,000 less than they are in a larger suburban school district,” Turner said.
Herl echoed similar concerns last year about Independence losing teachers to other school districts if the ballot question fails.
