OPINION: Innocent bystanders these lawmakers are not

Idaho’s lawmakers are no doubt sincere — and quite possibly correct — to be alarmed at the escalation of the four-day week among the state’s public schools.

But from the way they’ve been trying to discourage the practice, you’d think legislators were innocent bystanders in the process.

As Idaho Education News reported recently, as many as 76 of Idaho’s traditional school districts — slightly less than two-thirds — and about 20 charter schools now operate four days a week. The $2 billion school construction package that just cleared both the House and Senate would subject any district that converts from five to four days a week to additional scrutiny — although it’s unclear whether any district would actually lose money if it makes the conversion.

Motivating that policy are some sound concerns.

The average child’s attention span — especially younger students — doesn’t automatically expand with a longer instructional period or school day.

Maybe students retain what they learned as well during a three-day weekend as they would during a two-day weekend. Maybe they don’t.

If there’s research that demonstrates a four-day week has no detrimental effect on academic performance, there are a few college of education faculty members who’d like to see it.

And here’s the acid test: You won’t find Idaho’s largest, better-funded schools — from Lewiston to Boise to Idaho Falls — experimenting with a four-day schedule.

If anything, the impetus behind this trend — to paraphrase Idaho schools Superintendent Debbie Critchfield — had little to do with putting students first.

In the beginning, it was about money and a stingy Legislature.

Almost two decades ago, 10 traditional school districts and two charter schools sent students home on Thursdays, not to return until Monday.

Then Idaho lawmakers did something unprecedented. During the Great Recession, they cut the state appropriation to public schools.

Just like that, the idea of shaving 1% to 4% of a school’s operating costs — especially among Idaho’s small, rural communities — became imperative. Not operating buses, food services and maintenance for part of the week seemed like a plausible option to save a few dollars.

The savings didn’t necessarily materialize. School buildings remained open for any number of reasons, such as sports, extracurricular programs or lesson planning. So the heat and lights stayed on.

But it proved popular with parents.

Moreover, as teachers became accustomed to having an extra day off, a four-day work week became a chip in the competition to recruit from a narrowing labor market.

What was 43 smaller school districts in 2015 expanded into medium-sized communities not long after.

So lawmakers found themselves confronting an insurmountable obstacle — constituents back home who didn’t like another round of legislative mandates.

From the Senate came a trailer bill that, if passed, would stop the entire conversation.

Over in the House, a separate proposal would dilute the mandate substantially. Districts that convert to a four-day week would still be eligible for their share of the construction funds. There’s still a minimum amount of class time and teacher work time to be met, but the new bill allows those standards to be based on the number of hours rather than merely days.

And it kicks the can down road by delaying implementation until July 1, 2025.

While lawmakers have softened the stick, none of them have offered communities financial carrots to restore a five-day week. In fact, the school construction bill does anything but.

It diverts about $50 million from state resources that could be used for that goal and hands out another tax break to Idaho’s corporations and its wealthiest families.

Perhaps lawmakers don’t know any better. So many of them came to office after the Great Recession that the history eludes them.

But the author of the $2 billion school construction package — the same legislative hydra that cuts taxes, eliminates school bond and supplemental levy elections in August and makes the State Board of Education executive director a gubernatorial appointee — is the exception.

His name is House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star.

Having served 26 years in the Legislature, Moyle knows this story inside and out. And if his bill failed to make a serious effort toward restoring the five-day school week, it was no accident. — M.T.