As interest in four-day school weeks grows, more states are enacting laws or considering other measures that limit when schools can shift to the abbreviated schedule. A growing number of schools have turned to four-day weeks over the past two decades, sometimes for budget reasons, other times for teacher recruitment and retention. Still, more districts in recent years have turned to four-day weeks as they battle shrinking budgets. Four-day weeks are also often touted as a teacher-recruitment and -retention tool. Nationally, more than 2,100 schools in 26 states used four-day schedules as of the 2024-25 school year , according to researchers at Oregon State University.