Question: I want to know if our school districts could consider four-day school weeks for our students. How long must children attend school each year? If a four-day week is doable, could they attend school throughout the year?

Answer: School districts can hold four-day instructional weeks in Oregon. But really, schools aren’t required to have a certain amount of days. Instead, they need to offer a minimum number of instructional hours, said Morgan Allen, the interim communications director for the Oregon Department of Education.

Students in kindergarten need a minimum of 405 hours, first through third grades must have 810, fourth through eighth grades require 900 and high school students need 990, Allen said. At the same time, students can’t stick around at school for too many hours each day, either.

Allen said children in kindergarten through third grade aren’t supposed to spend more than six hours per day at school, while fourth through eighth can’t stay more than six and a half hours; and high schoolers no more than seven.

“If they went to a four-day week, they couldn’t do more than seven hours a day, for example, in high school,” Allen said.

According to a 2005 Oregon School Boards Association survey, there are about 35 districts in the state that offer four-day weeks.

Students can attend school throughout the year, but that decision is up to individual school districts.

“There’s nothing prohibiting that,” he said.

However, schools cannot offer any less than 265 consecutive instructional days between the first and last schools days of each year.

“So you couldn’t have a five-month summer vacation,” Allen said.

BJ Hollensteiner, the superintendent of North Bend schools, said her district has not discussed nor does it have plans to consider redistributing school hours to four days a week.

“At this point, the answer would be no,” Hollensteiner said.

Coos Bay superintendent Bob De La Vergne said a four-day school week is one of several ideas that have come up since Oregon cut school funding. The district is dealing with a $400,000 shortfall.

 De La Vergne said he isn’t sure how much money a scheduling change would save the district or if the idea will be seriously considered. However, it could cut costs on busing and electricity.

“Every little bit helps, but we have to be careful how we address that,” he said.

The superintendent said he’s sent out an internal e-mail and blog to district staff members about the topic and other subjects to get their input.

“This is going to be a hard road every school district is going to go down,” he said. “I’m not very interested in making a unilateral decision. ... I want to see how it impacts all programs and we’ll have a plan in January.”

(I Want to Know is a regular feature of The World, offering readers a chance to anonymously ask questions and have reporters pursue answers. Those interested can send questions to The World newspaper, P.O. Box 1840, Coos Bay Ore. 97420; or by sending e-mail to news@theworld link.com.)