As I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed this morning for school, I came to what I thought was a near-brilliant conclusion: let’s have school four days a week.

The extensive benefits of shortening a five-day school week down to four have been proven in school districts across the country. A study performed by the Center for Education Policy at the University of Southern Maine stated that morale and spirit throughout the student body increased, the number of daily absences decreased and overall GPA increased.

When they started early release at our school, the percentage of excused tardies decreased by 83 percent, unexcused tardies decreased by 46 percent and overall time out of class was decreased by an average of two days per student. The obvious correlation between a mass improvement among students was the chance of having 45 minutes removed from an average Friday.

Along with boosting overall school participation, the district would save immense amounts of money. I believe that a shorter school week would be one of the most economically brilliant choices a school district could make. Imagine how much money could be saved if 12 schools didn’t serve lunch for an extra day, didn’t provide transportation via bus for a day, and didn’t have to power 12 entire buildings. The extra money saved from not having a fifth school day could help fund any extra program the district needs.

Of course the statistics show the pros of a shorter school week, however, there is one major fault in the idea. While we’ll be given an extra day off, classes would essentially have to be lengthened to make up lost time. Or, if we kept the same length of our school days, we might even have to give up summer breaks. However, as the country falls behind in educational status, a longer day could be the educational turn-around this country needs.

In our very school district, a simple reward system of a shorter Friday has boosted GPA and lessened unexcused absences. If every school in the country takes our reward system a step further by removing Friday in the school week as a whole, then there will be what can be considered as the most drastic improvement ever seen by the educational system.