Rural Minnesota District Wants To Keep 4-Day Week

CLARA CITY, Minn. (AP) - A rural school district in west-central Minnesota wants to keep its four-day week.

Some Minnesota districts switched to a four-day schedule during the economic slowdown as a way to save costs.

With the financial crisis over, the Minnesota Education Department is ordering those districts to return to a traditional, five-day week by next fall.

But MACCRAY schools - as the Maynard-Clara City-Raymond school district is known - want to stick with the four-day week.

The schedule has reportedly been popular with students, parents, teachers and even local businesses, who hire teens to work on their off-day.

District officials say they have saved thousands of dollars on administrative costs.

But state education officials say there has been a lack of adequate academic progress in the district.