(EDITOR’S NOTE: The four-day school schedule was once an anomaly, restricted to rural schools in Idaho and other Western states. This fall, about 96,000 Idaho’s students are attending a four-day school, and the Nampa School District will be the largest district to adopt the schedule. Idaho EdNews senior reporter Kevin Richert will spend the 2024-25 school year taking an in-depth look at the four-day phenomenon — and how it affects students, taxpayers and communities. Share your comments, questions and story ideas via email: [email protected].)

It was the biggest education bill of the 2024 session — a historic proposal.

House Bill 521 moved the state of Idaho into the business of building schools, in an unprecedented way. The $1.5 billion will help districts replace aging and overcrowded schools — in hopes of reducing K-12’s reliance on hard-to-pass local bond issues.

But HB 521 was no feel-good debate. That’s because the 30-page bill took aim at Idaho’s four-day school schedule, by affixing strings to the historic facilities payments. Five-day schools would have been prohibited from switching to a four-day calendar. Existing four-day schools would have been required to meet new state requirements for classroom and teacher contract days.

Parents, teachers and administrators spoke out. And then won out.

Four-day advocates successfully pressured Gov. Brad Little and some of Idaho’s most powerful legislators, an outcome that might not have happened 15 years ago. With 76 of Idaho’s 115 school districts now on a four-day schedule, this once-novel education model has become prevalent.

And, perhaps, politically untouchable.

Of ‘blackmail,’ ‘garbage’ and ‘thug politics’

Skeptics used plenty of words to describe and decry HB 521 — and particularly its four-day schools language.

Blackmail. Ridiculous. Shortsighted. Garbage. Terrible. Horrible. Sneaky.

As HB 521 worked its way through the Legislature earlier this year, more than 200 Idahoans emailed Little and state superintendent Debbie Critchfield. Almost every email voiced opposition to the bill, or at least the four-day language.

The emails, obtained by Idaho Education News through public records requests, came largely from rural Eastern Idaho communities that have been on the four-day schedule for years. Many of these residents accused state leaders of trying to usurp local control, by holding state facilities dollars hostage.

Kory Kay — the principal of West Side High School in Dayton, a four-day school — called it “thug politics.”

Wrote Kay, “If it is the goal of the governor or the Legislature to eliminate the four-day school week, they should just come out and say it and do it.”

Regionalism and suspicion also rose to the surface. “A mandate from urban lawmakers on the other side of the state will not fit our local needs,” said Jennifer Housley, a teacher in the West Side district.

Others promised political payback.

“I’m not the biggest fan of yours after COVID,” Leah Gilbert of Preston said in an email to Little. “Put us on five-day weeks and you lose my vote altogether.”

Mary Lynn Evans, a math teacher and parent in the Blackfoot School District, sent Little a similar warning. “I voted for you, but if this passes I will not vote for you again.”

‘This definitely isn’t our … bill :)’

The Idaho School Boards Association wasn’t briefed ahead of time on the four-day schools language in HB 521.

But as soon as the trustees’ lobbyist read that section of the bill, she knew what was coming.

“I was not surprised at the pushback,” said Quinn Perry, the ISBA’s policy and government affairs director. “I knew that that was a bear that was being poked.”

It didn’t take long for some powerful people to distance themselves from the language in HB 521 — privately and publicly.

“This definitely isn’t our … bill :),” said Ryan Cantrell, Critchfield’s then-chief deputy, in a Feb. 22 email to Firth district superintendent Basil Morris.

Meridian Republican Rep. Jason Monks — the House’s majority leader and an HB 521 architect — gradually softened his stance.

In a House committee hearing in February, Monks said the original bill was designed to discourage districts from joining the exodus to a four-day schedule. By late March, Monks was back in a House committee room explaining a followup bill and offering what he called a “light touch.” The new bill would allow schools to get their share of the facilities money as long as they met state minimums for instructional days or classroom hours.

The Legislature unanimously passed this followup bill, known as a “trailer bill.”

The public pressure wasn’t lost on Little, who made the school facilities funding a centerpiece of his 2024 legislative agenda. Little is a staunch supporter of a five-day school week.

“That said, Gov. Little recognizes the authority of local school boards to adopt policies that reflect the needs of the students, families, and teachers in their individual districts,” spokeswoman Joan Varsek said. “He worked with education leaders to ensure the (facilities) bill ultimately provided districts options.”

A campaign talking point … sometimes

Advocates for the four-day school schedule haven’t always held this kind of political juice — in Idaho and elsewhere.

During the fall 2014 elections, Republican Gov. Butch Otter and GOP state superintendent’s candidate Sherri Ybarra made their reservations about four-day schools a matter of record.

Otter said he hoped to restore K-12 funding in order to render the four-day calendar obsolete. Ybarra suggested the four-day movement was a symptom of inadequate funding. The political rhetoric oversimplified the economics of the four-day schedule. While the Great Recession certainly drove some Idaho schools to shorten their weekly calendar, the four-day schedule has never been a big money-saver, in Idaho or elsewhere.

Like Idaho, Oklahoma is a rural, largely conservative state, and the four-day calendar has long been part of the K-12 system’s fabric.

Yet in October 2022, incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt defended his record with a thinly veiled criticism. “We’ve gone from budget deficits to a record savings account,” Stitt said during a gubernatorial debate, as reported by KOSU radio. “From four-day school weeks and teacher walkouts to now the largest investment in education and teachers in the history of our state.”

And Stitt wasn’t standing alone on this issue. His Democratic rival in the governor’s race, state superintendent Joy Hofmeister, had a record of pushing back against four-day school supporters. “Forcing the academic year into fewer and longer days with extended weekly gaps in instruction does not create an optimal learning environment for our students,” Hofmeister wrote in a 2019 guest opinion.

Stitt was re-elected.

A political non-starter?

As HB 521 became a referendum of sorts on four-day schools in Idaho, Tim Rosandick stood squarely in the minority.

“Please take the steps necessary to fend off the four-day school week,” the former Caldwell schools superintendent said in a March 14 email to Critchfield. “Without doubt the four-day week is all about adult interests and not student interests. … Your decision regarding the four-day week is the most critical decision you will make.”

But Critchfield has offered no signs that she wants to fight this issue. And even though Critchfield and Little share reservations about the four-day schedule, there are at least two powerful political forces at play.

One is sheer momentum. Seventy-six Idaho school districts are operating on a four-day calendar — up from 42 districts a decade ago. This growing prevalence means that the four-day schedule has staunch supporters and fierce defenders in every corner of the state.

Another is local control, one of Idaho’s often-invoked bedrock principles. Locally elected trustees have the final say over a district’s calendar, and during the HB 521 debate, they had no qualms about asserting their authority.

“The law says they can make decisions,” Critchfield said in an interview in September. “That local control piece is alive and well.”

The four-day schools issue came seemingly from nowhere this year, and became one of the 2024 session’s hottest education issues. With the 2025 session less than three weeks away, Perry says she’s heard no rumblings that suggest a repeat.

“I’m not hearing anything on wanting to revisit that conversation,” she said. “I think that message was heard.”

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics.