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The Complicated Fight Over Four-Day School Weeks

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The Independence school district just east of Kansas City, Mo., this Friday will wrap up its first school year implementing a four-days-a-week schedule. From Superintendent Dale Herl’s perspective, the switch has been a massive success.

A significant majority of parents and staff recently expressed in a survey that they’re happy with the current schedule and wouldn’t want to switch back. Finding qualified candidates for positions like teachers, bus drivers, and nurses was easier than ever in the last 15 years.

“All of the research shows that the most important thing for student learning is having a high quality, certified teacher in your classrooms,” Herl said. “By us going to a four-day week, we’ve been able to ensure that that has occurred.”

With roughly 14,000 students, Independence is the largest of more than 120 districts in the state, and one of the largest in the country, to adopt a four-day school week in recent years.

However, some state lawmakers aren’t convinced the model is worth promoting. Missouri recently approved legislation that will eventually require large school districts like Independence to secure voter approval once per decade to continue operating on a four-day week schedule. The state is also offering an annual financial bonus—initially equivalent to one percent of the district’s allocation of state aid—for districts that maintain or switch back to a five-day schedule.

Herl is in touch with many of the dozens of superintendents in Missouri districts that operate four days a week. None of them, he said, is considering restoring the fifth day as a result of the new policies.

But Paul Fregeau, superintendent of the 10,300-student Fox district south of St. Louis, said the new law helped convince him and his colleagues to put off for at least a year any decision about whether the district should move to a four-day school week. His district is experiencing a budget deficit, and the extra cash from the state will help soften the financial blow.

He also wants to see how the four-day school week fares among voters in other parts of the state.

“It’ll be interesting to see the communities that have been in it for a while, what their votes are,” Fregeau said. “That’ll send a strong message one way or the another.”

Some states want to discourage four-day school weeks

The debate over four-day school weeks in Missouri reflects broader disagreement across the country about the benefits and drawbacks of the approach.

Most of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts in the U.S. still open their doors to students five days a week. But in recent years, just shy of 1,000 districts in states like Arizona , Arkansas , Colorado , Kansas , Nebraska , New Mexico , North Dakota , Oregon , and Texas have moved to a four-day weekly schedule, often dropping either Monday or Friday. Some individual schools have joined in too—the Lafayette school district in Indiana recently approved a four-day school week for Vinton Elementary starting next year.

Some states are moving to increase flexibility for school district schedules. Late last year, Pennsylvania modified its law to allow school districts to operate 180 days per year or between 900 and 990 hours per year, rather than having to satisfy both requirements.

Others aren’t so eager. New Mexico school districts recently sued the state and convinced a judge to temporarily halt a newly passed school calendar law that effectively prevents districts from adopting four-day school weeks . A lawmaker in Louisiana floated an outright ban on school weeks of less than five days. And in Idaho, some district leaders are confused about whether a new state funding opportunity for improving their facilities hinges on their school system remaining open five days a week.

Researchers continue to paint a mixed picture of the effects of four-day school weeks. A study published in February by Missouri’s state education department found no significant difference in academic achievement regardless of the length of the school week. A RAND study in 2023 , meanwhile, found small decreases in the growth of student achievement in districts with four-day weeks.

The model is growing more popular, though. Two-thirds of teachers, principals, and district leaders who responded to an EdWeek Research Center survey in December said they’d be either slightly or much more willing to accept a job offer from a district with a four-day school week. Seventy percent of teacher respondents said they support a four-day school week.

Each district has a unique approach to a shortened week

No two four-day school weeks look exactly alike.

Some districts look to four-day school weeks to save money. The Fox schools, for instance, estimates annual savings on transportation costs of $300,000 to $400,000 with one fewer day of bus operations, Fregeau said. The district extended the school day by 35 minutes to ensure students don’t lose instructional time.

Others see the model as a tool to recruit and retain teachers who might otherwise seek districts that offer higher pay.

Herl told colleagues and community members upfront that his approach to a four-day school week likely wouldn’t reduce the district’s annual expenses, and might even raise them. But the district was struggling mightily to retain teachers, in line with broader statewide trends—less than half of new teachers are staying in the same district for four years, according to state data.

A four-day workweek enticed some candidates who might otherwise have gravitated towards nearby districts that pay more, he said.

The timing of the school year also factors into some districts’ decision-making around the length of the school week. In North Carolina, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district is considering a four-day school week if the state doesn’t agree to the district’s proposal to start the 2024-25 school year earlier than the law currently permits.

Some districts, like Independence, pay staff who work five days a week the same amount for working one day less. Others, like the rural Warren County, Mo., district west of St. Louis, dock a portion of their pay to reflect their reduced hours.

Even so, the new funding stream for districts operating five days a week didn’t convince the 3,000-student Warren County district to make the switch, said Superintendent Gregg Klinginsmith. State law requires districts to spend the money only on raising teacher salaries.

That wouldn’t have made up for the additional costs of transportation and other expenses for a fifth day of in-person instruction. And it wouldn’t have made staff more likely to stick around, he said.

“We asked teachers, ‘Do you want to give up your Mondays and make $500 more a year?’” Klinginsmith said. “The resounding answer was no.”

New policies could be costly for districts

Tensions are rising between districts and states over who should have the final say on four-day school weeks.

A bill in Minnesota would eliminate the current requirement that districts seek approval from the state education department before adopting the four-day school week.

In Missouri, districts in cities or counties with more than 30,000 residents will have to put the four-day school week to a community vote once every ten years, starting with the 2025-26 school year.

The Fox district will have to pay the state $145,000 just to get the item on the local ballot, Fregeau said.

“For us, that’s two teachers,” he said. That doesn’t include the cost of creating written materials to help community members understand the stakes of the election.

Some voters may already be forming their own opinions on the four-day workweek, which has gained mainstream attention in recent years as some companies in the U.S. and beyond have shaved a day off their weekly calendars. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, recently proposed legislation that would make the four-day workweek standard across America.

In districts that have adopted the four-day week, parents tend to worry about how their children are going to spend the extra day at home. But the anxiety tends to dissipate once the schedule takes hold, district leaders in Missouri said.

That’s in part because the four-day school week can be a misnomer. Many districts use the day off to offer supplemental instruction for struggling students, professional development opportunities for staff, or partner with community colleges on new course offerings.

“When you make the move, people are very concerned, I get a lot of feedback,” Klinginsmith said. “But since we’ve made the switch, I don’t think I’ve had a phone call in five years on people that are upset about it.”

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The Algebra Problem: How Middle School Math Became a National Flashpoint

Top students can benefit greatly by being offered the subject early. But many districts offer few Black and Latino eighth graders a chance to study it.

By Troy Closson

From suburbs in the Northeast to major cities on the West Coast, a surprising subject is prompting ballot measures, lawsuits and bitter fights among parents: algebra.

Students have been required for decades to learn to solve for the variable x, and to find the slope of a line. Most complete the course in their first year of high school. But top-achievers are sometimes allowed to enroll earlier, typically in eighth grade.

The dual pathways inspire some of the most fiery debates over equity and academic opportunity in American education.

Do bias and inequality keep Black and Latino children off the fast track? Should middle schools eliminate algebra to level the playing field? What if standout pupils lose the chance to challenge themselves?

The questions are so fraught because algebra functions as a crucial crossroads in the education system. Students who fail it are far less likely to graduate. Those who take it early can take calculus by 12th grade, giving them a potential edge when applying to elite universities and lifting them toward society’s most high-status and lucrative professions.

But racial and economic gaps in math achievement are wide in the United States, and grew wider during the pandemic. In some states, nearly four in five poor children do not meet math standards.

To close those gaps, New York City’s previous mayor, Bill de Blasio, adopted a goal embraced by many districts elsewhere. Every middle school would offer algebra, and principals could opt to enroll all of their eighth graders in the class. San Francisco took an opposite approach: If some children could not reach algebra by middle school, no one would be allowed to take it.

The central mission in both cities was to help disadvantaged students. But solving the algebra dilemma can be more complex than solving the quadratic formula.

New York’s dream of “algebra for all” was never fully realized, and Mayor Eric Adams’s administration changed the goal to improving outcomes for ninth graders taking algebra. In San Francisco, dismantling middle-school algebra did little to end racial inequities among students in advanced math classes. After a huge public outcry, the district decided to reverse course.

“You wouldn’t think that there could be a more boring topic in the world,” said Thurston Domina, a professor at the University of North Carolina. “And yet, it’s this place of incredibly high passions.”

“Things run hot,” he said.

In some cities, disputes over algebra have been so intense that parents have sued school districts, protested outside mayors’ offices and campaigned for the ouster of school board members.

Teaching math in middle school is a challenge for educators in part because that is when the material becomes more complex, with students moving from multiplication tables to equations and abstract concepts. Students who have not mastered the basic skills can quickly become lost, and it can be difficult for them to catch up.

Many school districts have traditionally responded to divergent achievement levels by simply separating children into distinct pathways, placing some in general math classes while offering others algebra as an accelerated option. Such sorting, known as tracking, appeals to parents who want their children to reach advanced math as quickly as possible.

But tracking has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on inequality. Around a quarter of all students in the United States take algebra in middle school. But only about 12 percent of Black and Latino eighth graders do, compared with roughly 24 percent of white pupils, a federal report found .

“That’s why middle school math is this flashpoint,” said Joshua Goodman, an associate professor of education and economics at Boston University. “It’s the first moment where you potentially make it very obvious and explicit that there are knowledge gaps opening up.”

In the decades-long war over math, San Francisco has emerged as a prominent battleground.

California once required that all eighth graders take algebra. But lower-performing middle school students often struggle when forced to enroll in the class, research shows. San Francisco later stopped offering the class in eighth grade. But the ban did little to close achievement gaps in more advanced math classes, recent research has found.

As the pendulum swung, the only constant was anger. Leading Bay Area academics disparaged one another’s research . A group of parents even sued the district last spring. “Denying students the opportunity to skip ahead in math when their intellectual ability clearly allows for it greatly harms their potential for future achievement,” their lawsuit said.

The city is now back to where it began: Middle school algebra — for some, not necessarily for all — will return in August. The experience underscored how every approach carries risks.

“Schools really don’t know what to do,” said Jon R. Star, an educational psychologist at Harvard who has studied algebra education. “And it’s just leading to a lot of tension.”

In Cambridge, Mass., the school district phased out middle school algebra before the pandemic. But some argued that the move had backfired: Families who could afford to simply paid for their children to take accelerated math outside of school.

“It’s the worst of all possible worlds for equity,” Jacob Barandes, a Cambridge parent, said at a school board meeting.

Elsewhere, many students lack options to take the class early: One of Philadelphia’s most prestigious high schools requires students to pass algebra before enrolling, preventing many low-income children from applying because they attend middle schools that do not offer the class.

In New York, Mr. de Blasio sought to tackle the disparities when he announced a plan in 2015 to offer algebra — but not require it — in all of the city’s middle schools. More than 15,000 eighth graders did not have the class at their schools at the time.

Since then, the number of middle schools that offer algebra has risen to about 80 percent from 60 percent. But white and Asian American students still pass state algebra tests at higher rates than their peers.

The city’s current schools chancellor, David Banks, also shifted the system’s algebra focus to high schools, requiring the same ninth-grade curriculum at many schools in a move that has won both support and backlash from educators.

And some New York City families are still worried about middle school. A group of parent leaders in Manhattan recently asked the district to create more accelerated math options before high school, saying that many young students must seek out higher-level instruction outside the public school system.

In a vast district like New York — where some schools are filled with children from well-off families and others mainly educate homeless children — the challenge in math education can be that “incredible diversity,” said Pedro A. Noguera, the dean of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.

“You have some kids who are ready for algebra in fourth grade, and they should not be denied it,” Mr. Noguera said. “Others are still struggling with arithmetic in high school, and they need support.”

Many schools are unequipped to teach children with disparate math skills in a single classroom. Some educators lack the training they need to help students who have fallen behind, while also challenging those working at grade level or beyond.

Some schools have tried to find ways to tackle the issue on their own. KIPP charter schools in New York have added an additional half-hour of math time to many students’ schedules, to give children more time for practice and support so they can be ready for algebra by eighth grade.

At Middle School 50 in Brooklyn, where all eighth graders take algebra, teachers rewrote lesson plans for sixth- and seventh-grade students to lay the groundwork for the class.

The school’s principal, Ben Honoroff, said he expected that some students would have to retake the class in high school. But after starting a small algebra pilot program a few years ago, he came to believe that exposing children early could benefit everyone — as long as students came into it well prepared.

Looking around at the students who were not enrolling in the class, Mr. Honoroff said, “we asked, ‘Are there other kids that would excel in this?’”

“The answer was 100 percent, yes,” he added. “That was not something that I could live with.”

Troy Closson reports on K-12 schools in New York City for The Times. More about Troy Closson

4-Day School Weeks: New Research Examines the Benefits and Drawbacks

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The move from a five-day school week to a four-day week with extended days has been one of the fastest-increasing—and least-studied—phenomena shaping district operations.

It boomed after the Great Recession, especially in small, far-flung districts looking to try to save cash and attract teachers. Now, the widest-reaching analysis of the practice to date paints a nuanced picture of the effects of the switch.

The four-day week is enormously popular among parents and students, the new research finds. It typically saves districts a small—but not intangible—amount of cash. And on their day out of school, students are typically working, doing errands, or spending time with family, not running wild.

The tradeoff for those benefits, though, shows in learning. Several years after adopting a four-day schedule, the researchers found, those districts saw slower rates of student progress than similarly situated districts that retained a five-day schedule.

In a sense, the findings underscore the mix of factors beyond test scores that district leaders and communities weigh when making decisions and point towards some of the more-general tensions at the heart of K-12 schooling.

Is the point of schooling just to raise achievement? Are there other civic benefits that accrue from these arrangements, like helping to instill in students a sense of responsibility through jobs or other duties? Just how should these competing interests be weighed?

“When I think about ed[ucation] policy debates, I often assume that achievement will be the king of all the outcomes. And it was pretty clear that when we talked to people that they did have this ‘whole-child’ model guiding their thinking,” said Rebecca Kilburn, one of a half-dozen researchers who conducted the study for the RAND Corp., a research and analysis group. “And they really did talk about everything from sleep, to stress, to spending more time with their families.”

A broad picture from four-day districts

The study, released Oct. 7, was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A team of researchers used three main methods to study the complex phenomenon.

More than 1,600 U.S. school districts have adopted the model as of 2019-20. In some states, it represents a significant, widespread restructuring of district operations, including 60 percent of Colorado’s districts and around 40 percent of New Mexico’s and Oregon’s.

The researchers interviewed more than 400 parents, teachers, administrators, and students in three states with large numbers of districts using the four-day model: Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. They also administered thousands of surveys to secondary students and to the parents of elementary students in 36 districts across those states and in three others—half of them using the four-day schedule and half using a traditional schedule—and collected data on their school schedules.

Finally, they analyzed nearly a decade’s worth of student test scores across four- and five-day districts in six different states, looking for patterns in how students performed.

Among some of the most important findings:

• When timing was added up, districts in the sample using the four-day schedule had longer days by about 50 minutes, but over the course of the year averaged 58 fewer hours of school.
• Students in the four-day weeks spent significantly more time on school sports and on chores than did those in five-day weeks. Four-day secondary students also spent more time on homework, at jobs, at school activities, and on hobbies than their counterparts.
• Most students in the four-day districts—80 percent of high school students and 90 percent of elementary students—spent their “off day” at home.
• The four-day week did not appear to affect student-absenteeism rates or result in more food insecurity for students.
• It did seem to change some sleep patterns, with four-day elementary students reporting that they got more sleep and four-day secondary students saying that they felt much less tired than their counterparts in five-day systems.
• Parents and students, given the choice, overwhelmingly said they favored the four-day model, with 69 percent of the former and 85 percent of the latter preferring it over five-day schedules.

That final finding came as a bit of a surprise, said Kilburn, who is now a research professor at the Centers for Disease Control Prevention Research Center at the University of New Mexico.

“In the policy debates, you often hear people saying, ‘We shouldn’t do it because parents won’t like it.’ Actually, in the district where people chose to switch, people really like it a lot, and it might be really tough to switch back once you do it,” she said.

The focus group interviews, in the meantime, fleshed out just why district leaders were willing to make the shift. They also provided context for other research showing that districts usually save below 3 percent of their costs , mainly in transportation, operations, and support-staff salaries, when moving to a shorter week.

Focus groups flesh out a complex picture

Some scholars have criticized the approach on the grounds that it saves such seemingly small amounts of money. But superintendents noted in interviews that even when the savings amounted to just a percentage or two, that was enough to hire an additional reading coach or fund some other program—no small feat in a time of fixed budgets and rising costs.

Similarly, in one district, the four-day week aligned well to work shifts in the town’s larger employer. In another district with a high proportion of Native American students, Kilburn recalled, the schedule allowed students and families to participate in tribal feasts or festivals that traditionally span several days.

“One of them said, ‘This is really great because we don’t have half our student body gone on feast days, and we don’t have students having to choose between coming to school and engaging in their traditional practices,’” she noted.

One eyebrow-raising finding could be the increased amount of chores four-day students appeared to engage in. But that category also included things like errands and medical appointments. In rural locations, where doctors’ offices, retail centers, orthodontists, and so forth can be several hours’ drive away, the four-day week gave them the opportunity to handle those duties without missing a day of school, the researchers found.

On the other hand, Kilburn noted, interviewees also said that while the four-day week was a good fit for their communities, they did not necessarily think it was workable in other locations with different circumstances.

What happens to student learning in four-day districts?

The study’s marquee finding will probably be what it says about student learning. To answer that tricky question, the researchers coupled student test-score growth data from a Stanford University project with federal data to adjust for district poverty and other factors. Then they compared similarly situated four- and five-day districts across those time periods.

The researchers found that there was no significant difference between four- and five-day districts when looking at absolute measures of student proficiency. But looking at growth over time shifted that picture.

Around three years after the switch, student growth in the four-day districts began to fall short compared to that in similarly situated five-day districts. The finding grew more pronounced with time and the slowdown in achievement was more dramatic in math than in reading. In all, the declines were on the order of between 0.05 to 0.15 of a standard deviation lower after three years, and around 0.2 of a standard deviation after eight years.

Effect sizes are hard to interpret in K-12 education but at least one research paper describes that as a medium to large effect —one that’s certainly larger than many other K-12 interventions. (The findings also echo those of a separate study on the effects of the policy in Oregon .)

In all, the study’s findings don’t align well with the rhetoric about the four-day week from either proponents or detractors.

The approach doesn’t appear to disadvantage working parents where it’s been tried or lead to worse social outcomes for students. On the other hand, it also doesn’t seem to yield huge cost savings, and with time seemed to slow student learning.

Even so, there are still unanswered questions about the the four-day week, the researchers concluded.

One thing that the study couldn’t pinpoint was just how the four-day week, sometimes characterized as a perk for educators, might affect teacher recruitment and retention. It can take years for such changes to alter the composition of the teacher workforce via who is attracted to teaching, who applies to open jobs, and how the change affects existing teachers’ retirement decisions.

Second, it remains unclear just why the four-day week affects learning.

The decrease in actual learning time could be the culprit, since time in school is connected to learning outcomes, but that hypothesis needs to be tested empirically.

A version of this article appeared in the October 27, 2021 edition of Education Week as 4-Day School Weeks: New Research Examines the Benefits and Drawbacks

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Education Week Magazine reports on a broad range of topics covering local, state, and national news, educational politics, and policy reform that affects preschool educators through the twelfth grade.  Education Week also produces in-depth reports focused on concerning issues.

In review, articles and headlines often utilize moderate emotional language, such as “What Education Issues Did Voters Care About Most? Hint: It Was Not Critical Race Theory.” This story, like most, is properly sourced from credible outlets such as The National Education Association (NEA) (the largest labor union in the United States). Further, also within this article, they demonstrate balanced reporting by sharing opposing viewpoints from the Heritage Foundation , a conservative policy think tank. 

Editorially, Education Week favors the left by promoting diversity and equity . They also report negatively on former President Trump, such as: “Trump Targets History Class as Well as School Choice in Bid for Second Term ,” and Republicans, such as “Here’s the Long List of Topics Republicans Want Banned From the Classroom.”

Education Week generally publishes factual news that holds a left-leaning editorial bias.

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Overall, we rate Education Week Left-Center biased based on advocacy and editorial positions that align with a moderate liberal perspective. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record.  (M. Huitsing 12/29/2022) Updated (05/06/2024)

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Next few days will ‘make or break’ some Oregon colleges’ enrollment amid FAFSA problems

This week is college decision time for many Oregon high school seniors, and admissions staff say this year’s flawed FAFSA has made enrollment extremely unpredictable.

FILE - A flyer informing Benson Polytechnic High School seniors about FAFSA, April 17, 2024. This year’s new FAFSA was intended to be simpler for students and their families to fill out, including students with undocumented parents. But it has so far been the opposite.

Tiffany Camhi / OPB

Usually this time of year, high school seniors would know which school they’re heading to next fall. And universities would have a good handle on their incoming freshman class students.

But this year has been very unusual.

Many colleges and high school seniors are months behind schedule due to the U.S. Department of Education’s botched rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Now students and their families are scrambling as key enrollment and aid deadlines approach in the coming days. Meanwhile, recent figures show FAFSA completion rates for seniors are down across the state, especially among high schools serving low-income students and families of color.

The new application, which had not been updated in decades, was designed to be simpler for people to fill out. It also touted expanded eligibility for the federal government’s Pell Grant program, allowing more low-income students to access a higher education. But the so-called “Better FAFSA” has been plagued by repeated delays, technical glitches and aid miscalculations.

The problems have barred some students from filling out the FAFSA for months. High school counselors and college financial aid and admissions staff worry the multiple barriers associated with the FAFSA this year have stopped low-income and first-generation students from applying at all. Some postsecondary schools have responded to the delays by pushing back enrollment deadlines.

The Education Department has fixed many of FAFSA’s early problems, but application numbers suggest the issues had a significant effect on high school students and families. Among high school seniors in Oregon, the number of completed applications is down by about 13% compared to this time last year, according to federal data . Breaking it down further among Portland public high schools, that percentage is even higher in more racially diverse schools. Both Roosevelt and Benson Polytechnic high schools are down by 41%. Jefferson is down by 36%.

Oregon State University's campus in Corvallis in February 2024. OSU is one of a number of universities to postpone enrollment deadlines as a result of problems with the FAFSA process.

Courtesy of Maia Insinga/Oregon State University

“I don’t know if it’s going to even itself out in the end,” said Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University, of the drop in completed FAFSAs. “I don’t know if those are students that weren’t going to enroll in college anyway? We don’t have any insight into that.”

This month the Education Department announced a new initiative to help more high school seniors successfully complete the FAFSA. The FAFSA Student Support Strategy is targeted towards bringing more staff and resources to school districts, nonprofits and community-based organizations that are actively working with seniors to fill out applications. Organizations can apply for a cut of $50 million in program grants to implement FAFSA clinics, hire more staff and cover things like transportation costs to FAFSA events.

Even though enrollment deadlines are approaching, some colleges and universities say they will continue to work with admitted students who are unable to complete the FAFSA after June 1. Oregon State University, which pushed back its enrollment deadline to June 1, is one of them.

OSU began awarding full financial aid packages to admitted students the first week of May, about a month and a half later than usual. Now admissions staff are waiting to hear back from students.

Boeckenstedt said enrollment for the freshman class overall is behind but OSU could be looking at a record enrollment next fall, if trends from the past few weeks continue.

“Roughly 20 days out [from the deadline] we were about 20% behind,” said Boeckenstedt. “We have closed that gap by about a point a day, every single day.”

Boeckenstedt said he is cautiously optimistic, but isn’t sure where things will land.

Enrollment numbers at private schools, like Lewis & Clark College in Portland, are also looking unpredictable. Eric Staab, vice president for admissions and financial aid at the college, said full financial aid packages started going out to prospective students in early April. Like OSU, Lewis & Clark pushed back its enrollment deadline to June 1, and Staab is hoping to see a rush of commitments this week.

Staab said the admissions process is at a critical point.

“The jury is really still out regarding where our enrollment numbers are heading,” Staab said, noting that many small liberal arts colleges rely heavily on deposits landing in the last 10 days before the enrollment deadline. “So we are in now the last 10 days and so this will make or break whether or not we’re gonna have a good year.”

The anxiety extends to students, families and to higher education officials across the board, Staab said.

“There’s been a lot of quietness among families as they’re going through [graduation] rituals this month,” said Staab. “A lot of us, including my friends at the public institutions, are on pins and needles, waiting to find out how this year is going to play out.”

Staab said Lewis & Clark will continue to work with admitted students who are having trouble completing the FAFSA after the Saturday deadline passes.

Students walk on the Eastern Oregon University campus during the 2021 fall term.

Courtesy of Eastern Oregon University

But the impact is not as apparent in some schools in Oregon’s rural areas. At Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, enrollment for the fall incoming freshman class is actually up compared to this time last year.

“Our enrollment numbers look about where we would expect them to be,” said LeeAnn Case, EOU’s interim vice president for finance and administration. “What we’ll never know is the impact of the student that just didn’t go through the FAFSA process.”

EOU has rolling admissions, with virtually no hard enrollment deadlines, but its financial aid office has deadlines to apply for institutional assistance. It began sending out full financial aid offers to students in mid-May.

Community colleges, which often serve a high number of Pell-eligible students, are also waiting to see how the problems with this year’s FAFSA will play out on their campuses. Rogue Community College in Southern Oregon is still waiting on half of its newly admitted students to fill out the FAFSA. But RCC Director of Financial Aid Frankie Everett said there’s still time for these prospective students to get the application done.

“Compared to May of last year, we’re about 900 FAFSAs short,” said Everett. “We still have all of this year for people to be able to submit their applications so we’ll probably catch up on that number.”

Last year, more than half — 57% — of RCC’s students were eligible for federal Pell Grants.

Everett said RCC has been focused on helping its community jump over the hurdles brought by the FAFSA this year. The community college has held FAFSA clinics at nearly every high school in Southern Oregon.

“We don’t care if they’re coming to RCC or not,” said Everett. “We just want to help seniors get their FAFSA completed successfully.”

While June 1 is a big day, many Oregon families with college-bound students should have another day circled on their calendars: The deadline for high school graduates to apply for state aid for community college is coming up on June 3. The Oregon Promise Grant is awarded to recent high school graduates or GED earners and helps cover the average cost of tuition at Oregon’s community colleges.

Applications for the Promise Grant are up compared to this time last year. But not all of those applications are finished; it also requires students to successfully complete a FAFSA or Oregon Student Aid Application to be considered for the award.

A completed FAFSA or ORSAA is also required for the state’s largest need-based financial aid program, the Oregon Opportunity Grant. The grant has no hard deadline and is awarded until funds run out. Combined with the Pell Grant, it could cover nearly $15,000 in college costs at a four-year university for the state’s lowest-income students this upcoming school year.

The state Office of Student Access and Completion is planning to continue efforts to boost FAFSA and ORSAA completion rates among recently graduated seniors this summer.

As financial aid offices scramble to help catch up students who want to attend their schools this fall, staff will barely have time to catch a breath before entering the next financial aid gauntlet in October. All the delays and technical problems over the last six months have slowed down preparations for students about to start the college application process for fall 2025.

“There’s genuine worry and concern among people in higher education that next year is still going to be very complicated because the federal government hasn’t even begun the process of putting together the aid application form for next year,” said Staab. “Normally the Education Department would have finalized that by February. And here we are in May.”

Editor’s note: The numbers related to grant programs from the state have been changed slightly to better reflect how much money they include.

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Concert tours to see this summer

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After months of iffy weather across much of the globe, summer is nearly here in North America. And, lucky for its residents, many standout artists are looking to take advantage of the sunshine with some live tours.

Alanis Morissette

One of Canada's most well-known musical exports is hitting the road again. Alanis Morissette will navigate venues across the United States during her "Triple Moon Tour," which will feature 33 dates running from June to August. Morissette will not go it alone, though, as she will be accompanied on stage by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts alongside singer Morgan Wade. Morissette released her tenth LP in 2022, but the "Triple Moon Tour" will mostly be in tribute to the 25th anniversary of her fourth studio album, "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie," which was released to critical acclaim in 1998. 

While "Family Guy" may have once described him as "just some guy with a hat," singer Jason Mraz is the recipient of two Grammy Awards and remains one of the most popular guitarists and singers of the last decade. Beginning in June, Mraz will venture on his "Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride Summer 2024," with shows in more than 25 locations in the United States and Canada through August. The artist behind the hit single "I'm Yours" named his upcoming tour after his 2023 LP of the same name, his eighth studio album overall and his first in three years. 

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Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire

Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire , two of the most popular bands of the 1970s, are combining for a mega-concert journey, the "Heart & Soul Tour," from July to September. Each leg of the tour will feature the "timeless music of Chicago and the iconic catalog of Earth, Wind & Fire," according to the band's website , and will "culminate in an encore performance with both bands on stage together." This timeless music will likely feature hits from both groups, including iconic soul soundtracks like "September" and "Shining Star" from Earth Wind & Fire, and rock ballads like "You're the Inspiration" from Chicago. Combined, both groups have won 11 Grammy Awards and sold more than 200 million albums. 

Melissa Etheridge/Jewel

Singer Melissa Etheridge has won dozens of accolades and played thousands of venues over her decades-long career, and now she is getting ready to head back on the road. She is teaming with singer Jewel to launch the duo's summer 2024 tour . The tour covers the majority of the summer and runs from July to the beginning of October, with locations throughout the United States and Canada. Etheridge, perhaps best known for her 1993 single "Come to My Window," last released a studio album in 2021, but does not appear anywhere near the end of her journey. 

Mannequin Pussy 

Philly's punk rock icons are returning to the stage with a new tour. Mannequin Pussy will be embarking on their "I Got Heaven Tour" throughout July and August; the group will begin with shows in the U.K. and Europe before heading home to the United States and Canada, where they will play a series of shows before crisscrossing back to Europe again. Mannequin Pussy's music is "built on big emotions and inside jokes," said The New York Times , and the group is touring to promote their most recent studio album and fourth LP, "I Got Heaven," which was released earlier this year. 

Foo Fighters

Dave Grohl and his band the Foo Fighters will be traveling down a sonic highway when they embark on their "Everything or Nothing at All Tour" in July and August. The tour comes a year after the group released their 11th LP, "But Here We Are," dedicated to both Grohl's mother Virginia and deceased band member Taylor Hawkins . The Foo Fighters will be playing shows in Manchester, Glasgow, London and other cities in the United Kingdom before playing a series of concerts in the United States. Once in America, the group, which was born out of the iconic 1990s grunge band Nirvana, will play 14 shows in 11 different cities.

Undoubtedly one of the most unique bands on this list, the psychedelic rock group Phish has formed one of the most loyal followings in music over a 40-year career (Drew Carey "talked to God" after seeing them, the television host said on X ). Now, Phish will grace the stage again with their summer 2024 tour in the United States, which will run from July to the beginning of September and will coincide with the release of their 16th LP, "Evolve," set to drop on July 12. This will mark the group's first official studio album in four years, though they did release a 2022 album under a different name. 

Green Day released their 14th studio album, "Saviors," earlier this year, and they are not wasting any time promoting it. The punk rock icons are venturing on a concert tour of the same name from July 19 to Sept. 28. The band will play their popular LPs "Dookie" and "American Idiot" in their entirety, and it is very much a global endeavor: Green Day will play venues in Spain, France, Germany, the U.K., Austria and more before crossing the pond to play shows across the United States and Canada. The band is keeping busy now, as they recently headlined a UN-backed climate concert in San Francisco. 

Kings of Leon

Many of the biggest names touring this summer are rock bands, and Kings of Leon are no exception. The Nashville-based group will head out on a summer 2024 tour from August to mid-October, beginning in European destinations such as the U.K., Austria, Ireland and France before playing 27 cities in the United States and Canada. The tour will be supporting Kings of Leon's ninth studio album, "Can We Please Have Fun," which was released this past February. Notably, this is the band's first album to not be released via their original recording label, RCA. 

You can usher in the end of the summer on a high note by seeing one of the most notable R&B singers of all time, as Usher is embarking on his "Past Present Future" tour beginning at the end of August. The singer is riding high after a notable performance in February at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, the city where Usher also held multiple residencies totaling 100 shows. Usher will tour cities throughout the United States on his concert venture and is planning on touring Europe throughout 2025. His ninth LP, "Coming Home," was released to coincide with his Super Bowl performance. 

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 Justin Klawans has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022. He began his career covering local news before joining Newsweek as a breaking news reporter, where he wrote about politics, national and global affairs, business, crime, sports, film, television and other Hollywood news. Justin has also freelanced for outlets including Collider and United Press International.  

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Education Week - October 11, 2023 - CW1

Education week - october 11, 2023, table of contents for the digital edition of education week - october 11, 2023.