MESQUITE, TX (NewsNation) — Having Fridays off all year sounds like a good idea, and it could become possible for one Texas school district soon.

It’s a schedule more schools across the nation are considering, and hundreds have already moved to a four-day school week as a way to combat teacher and bus driver shortages.

The Mesquite Independent School District of 38,000 students cites “an extreme teacher shortage.” The district’s board is set to vote on whether to approve a four-day school week by March 6.

The district said in a statement that the four-day school week, which would add one hour to each of the four days, “would allow MISD to structure a schedule that gives staff more flexibility with their time to address instructional needs” toward better performance.

More than 1,600 schools across 24 states have moved to a four-day school week, according to a 2021 study, up from 257 in 1999 that moved to a four-day schedule, giving students and teachers either Fridays or Mondays off. 

Students on a four-day schedule generally have longer days to make up for the time missed on their day off.

Meanwhile, there are concerns about child care, food insecurity and learning loss, especially since the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Daniel Robinson, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, told NewsNation that more data needs to be seen to better understand if a four-day school week makes a difference in student achievement.

“What we really need to see is a randomized experiment where if a school district or state is going to implement the four-day school week, let’s randomly assign some of the schools to a four-day school week and let’s have a controlled condition to observe what would happen if you didn’t do it and what would happen if you did,” Robinson said.

School districts often survey parents and teachers about what they think about the idea.

In some cases it’s popular. For instance, at Mesquite Independent School District, 80% of those surveyed said this would impact their family in a positive way.