Dear Prosper School Board,

My name is Alex Wells and I am a grade twelve student at Prosper High School. I am writing to you today in regards to the new school system that is being proposed for adopting a four-day school week. I choose to reject this idea. The reason as to why I have objection towards this is because school is a place where students need to get the most help and learning opportunities as possible, especially those who are on the verge of becoming an adult.

Many parents of students in this high school are against this issue. Parents believe in the success of their child and have made very well thought out decisions before responding. According to fastpoll.com, 64% of the parents have said no towards adopting a four-day school week. If a four-day school week system is adopted, there might be other commitments that come in the way for parents. If students do not have school on a Friday, parents can be worried about their children if they are home alone. They might be unable to make time off for their children due to their work rules and restrictions. Having a five day school week can also have one less worry for parents to deal with as school is intended to be a safe place. There are many staff members operating the school so that students have a safe environment to learn in. Having an extra day of school can increase maintenance, operation, and transportation fees. Despite this, there is a huge percentage of parents who are still rejecting to have a four-day week. It signifies that parents are able to afford to send their kids to school and hence financial reasons will not hinder their child in achieving the best education possible. Furthermore, this also increases productivity in students as they will avoid procrastination and instead be more motivated to get their homework done on Friday so that they can relax on the weekend.

 The purpose of school is to prepare students for the future. In post-secondary, students will have to attend lectures and prepare for exams from Monday-Friday. Adopting a four-day week in high school can make it very difficult for students to be able to transition into a university schedule. According to the revised time table, it shows that Prosper High School is willing to be more flexible and make adjustments to their schedule. However, time tables should aim to be an exact replica of what students will face in the future when it comes to jobs and university. Having longer hours in a day will lead to inefficiency in a student. This can cause time delays. Research indicates that the brain can only stay productive for a certain amount of hours in a day. Having a longer schedule can lead to a lack of sleep as students would be up very late working on homework or studying for tests. It can lower academic grades. I have a friend who attends a charter school which is quite far away from her house. I asked her about her opinion in regards to adopting a four-day school week. She mentioned that if her school proposed this issue, she would be strongly against it due to time constraints. It takes her an hour on the bus in order to get to and from school. If the school schedules are extended, she would automatically lose an hour on the bus and end up getting home very late. She said that her overall school performance would decrease as she would be very tired the next day. In order to make the school schedule more feasible, it would be ideal to create a schedule that would be about eight hours from Monday to Thursday. Friday can be shorter. This way, students can be more disciplined and productive and also have half the day off so that they are able to also spend time with their friends and family. 

There are many staff members in this school who are accepting this proposal of having a four-day week. They have backed up their reasoning by stating that it will give them extra time to plan and prepare their teaching material. I think that it can still be possible to have this and a five day week also. Prosper High School can create yearly academic calendars so that they can have a professional development day at least once or twice a month. A five-day week can also create more holidays for students and planning time for teachers. Many schools that have a five-day week, ensure that their school can have a fall break. In other schools, fall break is normally a week-long during the month of October. Students and teachers would get seven days off. Having some professional development days and a week off for fall break can accommodate teacher’s requests in having extra time to plan their curriculum and have better teaching methods for students. This would be a very good idea that can be proposed to Prosper High School as students will have more time to learn and seek help from teachers and weekends where they get “rewarded” for working hard in school. 

Having a five-day school week would be a better alternative as parents will be able to balance their schedules, have an effective time table so that students are more disciplined, and creating a better yearly calendar so that both students and teachers are satisfied. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my letter and I hope that you take my reasoning into consideration. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me by email, alex.wells@gmail.com, or phone and leave a message at (403)-123-4567. 

Yours SIncerely,

Alex Wells

Alex Wells