The Four Day Week

The atmosphere in the K-12 school was shockingly relaxed. Students were enjoying themselves, yet they were fully engaged in Option Enrollment Friday (O.E.F.) activities at Banner County School.

The OEF program in Banner County is the first of it's kind in Nebraska.

The mandatory school week is four days while the fifth day, Friday, which is optional for the students, is an enrichment day. Between 65% to 85% of the students voluntarily come to school on Fridays.

Planning for a four day week began in December of 2017 and continued with community meetings, surveys and finally a vote by the school board to institute OEF for the 2019-2020 school year.

Development of the program centered on concern for student burnout, so the entire process and program is student driven.

The success of OEF can been seen in the Banner County students as they have increased their engagement in everyday lessons, developed expressive language, collaboration skills and problem solving abilities.

In addition, district information states that "the students have more access to learning S.T.E.A.M., which includes coding, robotics, maker space."

Students are able to practice for extracurricular activities, such as speech, QuizBowl, Geography Bee and MathCounts on OEF days.

Principal Charles Jones said, Superintendent Evelyn "Browne has done a lot of the work behind this, and our staff has been really great about being creative and doing different activities."

Math instructor Nancy Olsen obtained a $10,000 grant from the Bayer Foundation and attended summertime workshops on drones. Then on OEF days, students studied drones, flew drones and learned the uses of drones in agriculture and industry.

Other high school offerings have included a variety of extra activities from Northeastern Junior College's ag trailer to specialized field trips.

One such trip required students to attend seven sessions offered on camping. They learned how to set up a camp site. Those completing the sessions were rewarded with a week-end camping trip to Yellowstone National Park. Agate Fossils Bed, the WildCat Nature Preserve and bowling trips have been extremely popular field trips.

3D printing is another big draw, as well as Geocaching. Elementary students can experience tumbling, chess, Legos, livestock judging or learn Spanish on OEF. Second-grader Kambrie Loutzenhiser loves Fridays.

"My favorite thing is maker space-you make stuff out of boxes," Kambrie said. "I made a barn for my brother and and then a grassland for my brother. Fridays are super fun and everybody likes it."

Browne and Jones have presented this new OEF model at various conferences throughout the state. "Many schools have called and wanted to know what it looks like and then scheduled a visit," Jones said.

Seventh-grader Issac Olsen expressed his feelings: "I like Option Friday because it's fun; you have different things to do. You can do anything you want. My favorite things were QuizBowl, 3D printing and the drone program."

Issac was very prophetic when he said "Optional Fridays are fun, but you also have to make it fun for your students."