Tennessee Lawmakers Reconsider 180-Day School Calendar Amid Push for Flexible Scheduling
Tennessee Lawmakers Reconsider 180-Day School Calendar Amid Push for Flexible Scheduling
A new state legislative advisory committee met Thursday in Nashville to explore whether the state’s current 180-day school calendar should be replaced by a more flexible instructional time model, measured in hours or minutes.
The Advisory Committee on Innovations in K–12 Education is composed of eight Tennessee lawmakers, a representative from the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), and a representative from the State Board of Education (SBOE). Members gathered in a summer working session to evaluate the potential positive impacts and the drawbacks of allowing school districts more autonomy in structuring their academic calendars. Several other representatives were present to provide information and testimony, including members from Bradley County School District, Emerald Academy, and the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE).
Current law mandates that public schools operate for 180 instructional days, with each day defined as 6.5 hours of instruction. However, Thursday’s discussion centered on the idea of shifting toward an hour or minute-based model, which would give districts more freedom to design alternative schedules, such as four-day school weeks or extended learning blocks, without reducing total instructional time.
Key Questions
Lawmakers raised several critical questions: Would a flexible format impact educational quality? How might student outcomes, particularly for high schoolers, be influenced by having a weekday off? Would unsupervised time at home increase risks for juvenile delinquency? And how would such a shift affect classified staff like bus drivers and custodians, whose pay is often tied to daily schedules?
“Innovative models can work for charter schools,” said Senator Bo Watson (R-Hamilton County), chairman of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, “but would they work for traditional public schools?”
The session included participation from Senators Bill Powers, Todd Gardenhire, former Sen. Mike Bell, and former Sen. Bill Ketron, reflecting strong interest from both current and retired legislators despite the summer recess.
Representatives from the Bradley County School District and Knoxville-based Emerald Academy were among those who shared local models of innovation.
Emerald Academy’s Flexible Approach
Carlissa Weeks, School Director of Emerald Academy, and Chrisi Bollinger, Director of Research and Analytics at Emerald Charter Schools, presented their charter school's model as an example of how increased flexibility can benefit student learning, especially among underserved populations.
Founded in 2015, Emerald Academy serves 460 K–8 scholars, predominantly Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students, with 273 more on the waitlist. The school has operated with a longer school day (7.5 hours) and extended year (190 days) since its inception. According to Weeks, this model provides students with an average of 23.5 more instructional days per year compared to the state minimum.
“In K–2, we’ve increased the number of daily math instructional minutes. In grades 3–8, we’ve done the same with English Language Arts,” said Weeks. “This additional time has helped us cut chronic absenteeism in half—down to 13% as of the 2023–24 school year.”
Bollinger noted that Emerald Academy’s outcomes reflect a strong upward trend: from 2022–23 to 2023–24, their schoolwide academic proficiency increased by nearly 40%. “Every subject tested individually is now rated at Level 3 or Level 4,” she said, adding that the school is successfully shifting outcomes for minority and low-income students alike.
The Emerald team also emphasized the role of data-driven instruction and intensive instructional coaching in improving academic performance post-COVID.
Looking to Other States
The committee also considered whether results have been positive for states that have approached calendar flexibility. Texas, for example, made the switch to a minute-based model in 2015, giving districts more calendar freedom while maintaining instructional time. States like Colorado and Missouri have experimented with four-day school weeks, with mixed results: while families and staff often report higher satisfaction, studies show that academic performance can dip if total instructional hours are not preserved.
In states that maintain the same number of instructional minutes, however, the academic outcomes tend to remain neutral, suggesting that schedule flexibility does not inherently harm learning, so long as total learning time is protected.
Future Meetings to Focus on Testing
The committee will hold an additional meeting next month and in September to focus on potential changes to the academic requirements for career and technical education (CTE) students, licensure requirements for teachers, and the impact of reducing teacher evaluation and testing requirements. Members will make recommendations for the Tennessee General Assembly to consider next year.
Representative Mark Cochran, R-Englewood, proposed reducing testing and evaluation requirements earlier this year. He reassured accountability supporters that the committee will not recommend widespread reductions, but he said the state does need to look for the “sweet spot” in education to get the best results for classroom and testing time.
“I don’t think anyone is proposing that we slash all testing. I don’t think anybody in here thinks that is a good idea,” said Cochran. “Education doesn’t stay the same every year, and so our techniques and our methods, and our methods of testing can’t stay the same every year.”
Senator Bo Watson (R-Hamilton County), chairman of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, tied in the day’s topic of instructional time with accountability.
“If we give schools more flexibility through instructional hours, aren’t metrics for accountability that much more important then?” Watson noted.
