The Powell School district may have a new schedule in the near future by eliminating early release Wednesdays and replacing them with half-day Fridays every week.

Implementing the 4.5-day week, which, if approved by the School Board would go into effect for the 2018-19 school year, would allow students to travel for activities on Fridays without missing as much school. Attendance is one of  the main issues the district is trying to improve.

“I think the pros of it are that is has the opportunity to keep students in class during the week,” assistant principal Mr. Tim Wormald said. “There will be many days when we won’t have school on Friday afternoons when students are on the road for activities and sports. The potential there is to improve attendance if we do that.”

If the 4.5-day week was put in place, time in school would need to be made up. Having shorter lunch periods and longer classes are an option to make up the time.

“In order to end at 1:00 or so on Fridays, we would have to find some time somewhere,” Mr. Wormald said. “One of the thoughts is that we need to shorten lunches a little bit. We would need to take time from the lunch and make class a little longer.”

Students want to have the 4.5-day week even if the lunch is shortened. They think the additional time on Friday would make up for the lost lunch.

“I would like to have a four and half day week because I think it would be nice to have the extra time to the weekend,” junior Gabri Lundberg said. “I think it would be worth it even if we lost some of our lunch.”

The Prowl conducted an online poll about half-day Fridays. Out of 77 people, 88 percent are in favor, 6 percent are against the idea and 6 percent do not care.

Other changes that could occur with or without the 4.5-day week is the length of winter and spring breaks.

“The Board preliminarily approved for a full week at Spring Break,” Mr. Wormald said. “We would have school on Good Friday, but the week after Easter we would have off. In order to do that, we would need to have a shorter Christmas Break.”

The change in the amount of days at breaks would bother some students because they are used to having a long Christmas Break and a short Easter Break.

“I would prefer a longer Christmas Break since I’m used to having a longer Christmas Break,” Lundberg said. “I feel like it would be weird to switch around.”

Finals before Christmas Break are a possibility with or without the 4.5-day schedule.

“Well, I think that could happen regardless of what we did with the four and half day week,” Mr. Wormald said. “I don’t think those two are tied together, but we are looking to move finals before Christmas Break.”

The proposal likely will be discussed at the February School Board meeting, at which it will be determined whether the current 4.5-day committee, consisting of teachers, classified staff and administrators from around the district, should continue to work on making this happen for next year.