While enrollment drops and alternatives to public school become more popular, the Tucson Unified School District is asking parents what they think of a four-day or year-round schedule for the 2027-2028 school year.
In a survey sent out in June and open until August, families are asked to rank those choices alongside two other options: a schedule with no changes and one that adds a day to Thanksgiving break. The calendar for the year-round proposal would start in July instead of the usual August start date.
Flori Huitt, an assistant superintendent and lead on the Calendar Committee, says the aim is to get more than 20,000 responses across the 40,000-student district.
Assistant Superintendent Brian Lambert says the TUSD board and superintendent tasked the committee with posing something out of the norm to see if families would be interested in a change.
“We're trying to be creative and provide parents the opportunity to give input on what would meet their needs best,” he says.
Lambert says that although the survey isn’t part of the Student Relations attendance and enrollment campaign, he hopes listening to parent input would boost that initiative.
“We would love for our enrollment to increase,” Lambert says.
Laura Katterhenry is a mother of two elementary school students in the district. She and her husband work five days a week, so she says a four-day week or year-round schedule with longer breaks would disrupt their routine.
“I don't think parents would be itching for, you know, having their kid out of school more to be honest, just because it's so challenging,” she says.
This isn’t the first time parents are hearing of a four-day school week. Earlier this year, the district board voted to pilot a four-day week at Palo Verde High School. That resulted from an effort led by the principal, who argued it would give students an extra day for college preparation. He also said it could attract more students to the district. Lambert says the Calendar Committee’s survey is not related to that instance.
The four-day week at Palo Verde will be a first for the district and for districts across Pima County. But the model has been piloted in Patagonia Public Schools where it’s been a success, and in a Glendale charter school where it had adverse effects and had to be reversed.
Lambert says that Fridays would be spent on professional development for employees and routine events like parent-teacher conferences.
Katterhenry says her daughters would likely use Fridays to play or spend time with their grandparents. But she worries that schedule would pose challenges to peoples’ financial well-being and health.
“If kids are only going four days a week and they have food insecurity, then there's one fewer day that they're going to get a breakfast and a lunch for free,” she says.
Parents who are not able to watch their kids on Fridays would also face the expenses of childcare, Katterhenry says. For those reasons, she ranked the no-changes schedule at the top, the extended Thanksgiving break option second, the year-round option third and the four-day last.
Huitt says the committee will likely discuss the survey results in August.
“We're very excited to get the results because we want to hear from our community, being the families as well as the teachers. I mean if the teachers are like ‘No I don't like this at all, that's really important to hear,’” Lambert says.
Enrollment at TUSD dropped about 3% from 2025 to 2026. Since 2022, it’s declined almost 7%.
