It’s a Monday in September, but with schools closed, the three children in the Pruente household have nowhere to be. Callahan, 13, contorts herself into a backbend as 7-year-old Hudson fiddles with a balloon and 10-year-old Keegan plays the piano.

Like a growing number of students around the U.S, the Pruente children are on a four-day school schedule, a change instituted this fall by their district in Independence, Missouri.

To the kids, it’s terrific. “I have a three-day break of school!” exclaimed Hudson.

But their mom, Brandi Pruente, who teaches French in a neighboring district in suburban Kansas City, is frustrated to find herself hunting for activities to keep her kids entertained and off electronics while she works five days a week.

  • @Number1SummerJam
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    101 year ago

    Why are schools cutting hours when we’re falling behind in basic math and reading nationally?

    • SuiXi3D
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      131 year ago

      Because repuglicunts don’t believe in paying to educate kids so they become useful members of society. Easier to brainwash that way.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Because greed and self isolation are the roots of this country and money is sucking up into the hands of people who do nothing but hoard it and spend on frivolous stuff and not in the hands of people actually needing to get work done holding society together. It’s not just Republicans but they are certainly the ones who are happy to cut off the ends and let the limbs bleed out to save some weight.

    • @andros_rex
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      21 year ago

      Cutting costs. At this point teachers are expected to stock their own classrooms. There’s very little money for anything.

      Also it’s recruitment for teachers. Extra day off = actual time to get things done/restore sanity. A lot of rural districts do this because they’d have no one otherwise.