Do you love weekends? Do you like hanging out with friends and getting more time to relax? Well, this article is for you. We recently spoke to Edison Intermediate1 School’s students about their opinion on 3-day weekends. Seventh grader Madison Green said, “Three-day weekends would give us more rest, which leads to higher performance.”
According to the article Start School Later, 20-30 percent of high school students and 6 percent of middle school students fall asleep in class; our 3-day weekends would significantly lower the number of kids that do this. However, how would the curriculum be taught with one less day of school per week? Eighth grader Luke Politi expressed what time he feels school should start and end with 3-day weekends. “School would be more balanced with 3-day weekends if we started at 7:30 a.m. and ended at 3:00 p.m.”
Extending the current school day by an hour would give students a more extended educational-based week and more free time on 3-day weekends. This schedule would also give students a manageable time to get home and prepare for sports or extracurricular/after-school activities.
Sixth grader Sawyer Daniels explained how he feels about 3-day weekends. “During regular school, there are not enough breaks. I would be fine with longer school days, but I would want a study period where students can go to a classroom and get extra help.”
This shows that students who care about their grades and mental health want to perform their best during four-day school weeks. Between homework and sports, students find it hard to make room for friends, but with another day tagged on to the weekend, students could use that day to have fun and hang out with friends. EIS Social Studies teacher Mrs. Jackie Messinger expresses how she would feel about a switch: “Three-day weekends would give us more time to tidy up around the house.”
School Resource Officer Ricardo Johnson explained what his schedule would look like if Westfield Schools adopted a four-day school week: “As a member of the Westfield Police Department, my schedule would not change, considering I would just go out to patrol instead of being in the school.”
These are just a tenth of the people we interviewed, and as you can see, people love this idea of 3-day weekends. Also, if you think that no one would ever accept this proposal for 3-day weekends, several states already have 3-day weekends. With this information, why wouldn’t New Jersey make the change?
