POYEN, Ark. — Students in some Arkansas school districts will be saying goodbye to 5-day school weeks— including Poyen.
"I feel like our community is excited. And I think our kids will be a change. But I think they'll be you know, I think there'll be good with it as well, the further we get along," said Ronnie Kissire, superintendent of the Poyen School District.
According to Kissire, family time is the main reason for the change.
"We want that time off for our faculty, so we can recoup and hit it hard the other days," he explained.
Kissire said that he believes the new 4-day week will draw in more interest to work in the district.
"As far as our hiring process, we've had many more applicants than we have in the past," he said.
Ben Roberts, who is looking to enroll his son in Kindergarten at Poyen, said that the new schedule would be good for his family.
"I think that extra day at home is going to be a lot more enriching for kids, you know, they need a little bit of a break longer than then as adults do. I work four days a week, and it's amazing as adults to have three days off. So to be able to transfer that into kids, that sort of schedule, really nice," Roberts said.
Fifth-grader Emily Hurst said that she's looking forward to having longer weekends too.
"I'm excited because I'll get more time at home. And I only have to go a little bit later. So it ain't really gonna be that bad," Hurst said.
Kissire said that the shorter school week and longer days should help students who fell behind their learning level because of the pandemic.
"One of the things that we're looking at with that is to actually get more time for our response to intervention with our students. So we can help tutor in the afternoons," he said.
Kissire said that he's heard positive things about other school districts making the same change.
"We want time with our families," he said.