Another rural school district will be making the move to a four-day instructional week.

Hillsboro ISD’s board of trustees approved its calendar for next term earlier this week, transitioning from five to four working days per week.

“The adopted calendar provides our dedicated staff with an additional planning day, fostering an environment of continuous improvement,” Superintendent Darrell Brown said, according to WFAA.

A survey was conducted among parents, teachers, and staff prior to the decision, which was unanimous.

Small, rural school systems like Hillsboro ISD, which has a student body of around 2,000, have been making the switch across the Lone Star State with the goal of attracting quality teachers.

“One of my most important responsibilities as Superintendent of Schools is to ensure we hire the most qualified teachers for our students. Since 2020, most school districts have experienced fewer highly qualified applicants,” said Brown in a statement announcing the new calendar.

Other taxpayer funded districts to have made the change include Mineral Wells ISD, Gainesville ISD, Venus ISD, Chico ISD, Jasper ISD, Palo Pinto ISD, and Anna ISD.

As previously covered by The Dallas Express, officials at Anna ISD made the decision last year after 72% of parents and 87% of staff responded favorably to a shortened schedule in a survey. The district had been struggling to attract seasoned teachers for its student body of over 5,000.

Anna, which is in Collin County, about 40 miles north of Dallas, is projected to experience considerable population growth, with student enrollment expected to increase by almost 8,000 within the next five years.

Some research has called into question the impact of a four-day instructional week on students’ learning outcomes. For instance, a study appearing in Economics of Education Review concluded that a condensed schedule resulted in some “reductions in both math and English/language arts achievement.”

The Texas Education Agency’s accountability report from 2021-2022 found that Hillsboro ISD performed a point under the state average, with 47% of its students scoring at grade level on the STAAR exam that year. However, it had a four-year graduation rate of 96.9%, which surpassed the state average of 90%.

For comparison, just 41% of Dallas ISD students — the second largest student body in the state — scored at grade level on the same test. Nearly 20% of its graduating class failed to earn a diploma on time that school year.