Four-day week

A four-day week is an arrangement where a workplace or school has its employees or students work or attend school over the course of four days rather than the more customary five. While this has been a part of flexible working hours, in mid-2008 it is being used to reduce the cost of transportation.

"Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion",according to the governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley. The state will also save on gasoline used by official vehicles, but authorities have not figured out how much." cite web |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25518225 |title=Utah is going to a 4-day Workweek|accessdate=2008-07-24|publisher=MSNBC]

In rural areas, the four-day school week is growing in popularity [ [http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0820/p14s02-lecs.html CS Monitor] ]

"Schools find that knocking off Fridays or Mondays can save money on transportation, heating, and substitute teachers. Advocates say four-day weeks have other advantages: They cut down on student and teacher absences, and the fifth day is used for teacher training or to free up teachers for personal appointments."

About 100 school districts in six states – Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and South Dakota – are trying it this year. All are rural and most are small, each with fewer than 1,000 students." [ [http://abcnews.go.com/Business/PainAtThePump/story?id=4947436 Pain at the Pump] ]

"One of the first — if not the first — districts in the country to switch to such a schedule was Cimarron, N.M. The Cimarron district made the move to a four-day week in January 1974 in reaction to the oil embargo by Arab nations. Three decades later, there are 18 districts statewide, including Cimarron, on such schedules, according to the [http://sde.state.nm.us/ New Mexico Department of Public Education] ."

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