By reducing the school week from five to four days, new Pennsylvania legislation allows public schools to implement this change.
In order to partake, schools need to be able to meet the 900-hour school year requirement for elementary schools and 990 hours for middle and high schools.
At Souderton Area High School, school days are typically seven hours long.
This means that to meet the 990 required hours, 142 school days are needed.
Currently, the Souderton Area School District requires 180 days of school.
If Souderton were to partake in shorter weeks, the district would most likely not have to compromise with longer days or more weeks in the school year.
Many students have expressed their positive thoughts towards the idea.
According to sophomore Jules Kaminsky, a four-day week at Souderton would allow students to have more time to focus on school work in addition to activities outside of school.
“I think a four-day school week would really help free up my schedule and give me more time to get stuff done that I have to put off because of all the homework that I have to do on a daily basis,” Kaminsky said.
Kaminsky is in support of the shorter week because it would also allow students the opportunity to have a more rejuvenating weekend.
“I think five days really makes students feel drained,” Kaminsky said. “The amount of homework that we have takes up so much time from our daily lives outside of school.”
10th grade assistant principal Josh Klimovich shares similar thoughts.
“I can see benefits to a four day week for a lot of students. I think it would help older students have more time to work, and for students to have more time to spend with family,” Klimovich said. “I typically am in support of changes so if we could transition slowly to something like that, it could be helpful.”
According to freshman Keira Breon, having a four-day week would let students participate in more activities “such as sports and physical activities.”
“I want a shorter week because I would like to have more time for other things that are important to me. In the free time that I would have with a four-day week, I would probably spend more time with friends and I would do more sports,” Breon said.