The results are in and the four-day school week at Wallowa is the winner … by a landslide!

We are referring, of course, to a poll of Wallowa residents that we conducted on behalf of the Wallowa School Board.

The purpose of the poll was to find out what patrons of the school district think of the four-day week now that they have had a year to adjust to the new schedule.

The four-day week was an experiment conducted by the Wallowa School Board in an attempt to balance the school budget. It is an example of the kind of “outside the box” budget discipline that Wallowa school officials have deployed to maintain a healthy financial picture when other school districts are seeing nothing but red ink.

As is often the case when change is implemented, there is opposition, and the abbreviated school week at Wallowa was no exception when it was first adopted. Some parents were upset because the change meant they were going to have to absorb extra child care costs since their children would no longer be supervised by school district staff on Fridays. Others felt that the revised schedule would reduce academic performance because students would have to get to school 20 minutes earlier and stay 20 minutes later in order to get in all the classroom time they needed to fulfill state standards. Parents had additional concerns as well, and let them be known in pretty strong terms.

Understandably, board members wanted to know how pervasive these concerns were … hence the poll. To avoid any perception of bias the board asked us to compile the results.

So we sent out approximately 150 questionnaires to patrons of the district, then tabulated the results after they were returned to our office. Of the total, 72 questionnaires were returned, which, as polls go, is an excellent rate of return. Obviously the people of Wallowa are very much engaged in their school district.

We were very impressed with the thought that some of the respondents put into their surveys. Even those who dislike the four-day week raised some very poignant points. For example, many parents are concerned about the length of the school day, saying their kids are “wiped out” by the time that they get home, that their kids are no longer available to do chores, and are so hungry they can’t wait for dinner. Others expressed concern about kids having too much idle time on Fridays, and several were critical of the August start date.

Overall, though, parents generally appreciated having more quality time with their children as a result of the four-day week. “This was my favorite outcome of the four-day week,” said one respondent. “It’s nice to get a three-day weekend together,” wrote another.

Hopefully the school board will now use the comments on both side of the issue to tweak the four-day week so that it works even better in the future.

Maybe then other organizations in the county should consider following suit. Think of how quality of life in Wallowa County would be improved if everyone had a three-day weekend! R.S.