The Effects of the Four-Day School Week on Teacher Recruitment and Retention
Andrew M. Camp 
Se Woong Lee
What We Studied and Why It Matters
Many school districts are switching to four-day weeks hoping to attract and keep teachers — but does it actually work? We studied Missouri, where nearly a third of districts now use a four-day schedule, combining interviews with educators and a statewide analysis of teacher hiring and turnover data from 2008 to 2024. While superintendents and teachers consistently told us they believed the shorter week helped with staffing, our empirical analysis found no meaningful effect on either teacher recruitment or retention. This disconnect held even among early adopters, when the four-day week was still a rare perk, and persisted across subject areas including hard-to-staff fields like STEM and special education. These findings matter because the four-day week’s expansion is being driven largely by a perceived staffing benefit that doesn’t show up in the data — and prior research shows the policy may reduce student achievement.
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Citation
@misc{camp2026,
author = {Camp, Andrew M. and Anglum, J. Cameron and Koedel, Cory and
Lee, Se Woong and Nguyen, Tuan D.},
title = {The {Effects} of the {Four-Day} {School} {Week} on {Teacher}
{Recruitment} and {Retention}},
date = {2026-02-01},
url = {https://caldercenter.org/publications/effects-four-day-school-week-teacher-recruitment-and-retention},
langid = {en}
}