The four-day school week was put back on the agenda for the Washington School Board during their recent meeting due to the introduction of year round school by the state. 

This session, the Iowa Legislature passed a bill authorizing school districts and accredited nonpublic schools to apply to the Department of Education for authorization to maintain a year-round school calendar. Superintendent Willie Stone brought this to the board to be discussed after the unanimous decision to move to a four-day week was pushed back to the fall by the school board. Stone stated, “I guess what I’m asking for is direction, because we had pretty clear instruction on looking at four days, and these are the things that you wanted, and trying to create a list of things or the answers that you needed to be able to make a decision, but now with this in it, I think we have to look at both and make a decision. This is the way we want to look at going, and then dive into that more deeply with our community.”

The board directed Superintendent Stone to find some example calendars of year-round schooling to present to the board. This will be an ongoing topic for the board.