Broward’s high schools are considering an unusual approach to try to increase student achievement — reduce the number of days students are in school.

The reason: The school district’s most academically successful high school, Pompano Beach High, offers classes four days a week, Monday to Thursday. Students still attend the number of hours required by the state each week, but they do that by going to school more than 8 ½ hours per day, instead of the typical seven hours for students in other high schools.

Students spend Fridays doing internships, volunteering, mentoring students at other schools, taking courses optional courses such as SAT-preparation or participating in extra-curricular activities, Principal Lisa Spencer told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

The school has been using this model since 1997.

“Even though at the time it seemed to defy the laws of standard educational physics, the experiment appears to be working out,” a district presentation said.

The School Board is discussing whether to expand Pompano Beach High model to more schools. Although most board members voiced reluctance to try this at every high school, they were open to consider it at some schools, such as one in each of the seven School Board member districts.

Pompano High has been consistently A-rated by the state and is the only high school in Broward to rank among the state’s top 25 and the nation’s top 300, according to U.S. News & World Report’s list of best high schools.

“Whatever they’re doing, whatever the magic sauce is, we need to go there and see what that is, because it’s working,” Board Chairwoman Lori Alhadeff said at a recent meeting. “And students want to go to Pompano Beach High School.”

However, not everyone is convinced Pompano Beach High’s success is related to its bell schedule.

A four-day week was far less successful at Blanche Ely High in Pompano Beach, which tried the approach in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Friday was an optional day, where students could take two 110-minute classes either for enrichment, test preparation or recovery of a failed course. They could also use Fridays to complete internships.

During that time, the school was consistently D-rated. The school dropped the model in 2003, and since then, its grades have ranged from A to D, but has most frequently been C-rated.

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There are key differences between the 2,000 student Blanche Ely and the 1,300-student Pompano High.

Blanche Ely serves mostly students from its neighboring community, many of whom are low-income and academically struggling. The school also has magnet programs in pre-engineering and medical sciences that draw some students from outside the boundary.

Pompano High has a schoolwide magnet program that requires all students to apply and meet certain academic requirements to enroll and stay in the school.

“Pompano Beach is not a traditional high school,” Board member Debbi Hixon said. “It is only magnet and those students are all high level that come there to begin with. They would probably be an A if they go to school once a week, because they have students are excelling to begin with.”

The highest-performing schools in Florida have traditionally been ones where most or all students have to apply to get in, including School for Advanced Studies in Miami-Dade County and Suncoast High and A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in Palm Beach County.

Hixon said she’d be willing to expand the concept to a few more schools to see what kind of results they get.

Spencer said the four-day week doesn’t work for every student. She has a few students each year who leave.

“It takes a highly motivated student who chooses this model,” she said. “There has to be excellent time management and self initiative, because the days are long.”

Four-day school weeks are used in more than 1,600 schools across 24 states, according to research from Oregon State University. The schedule is often used as a way to cut costs or attract teachers.

But the outcomes have been inconclusive or negative, according to several studies.

A 2018 study reporting a 20% increase in student crime at some schools and another showing a drop in student achievement. A 2019 study found declines in student achievement, particularly for boys and low-income students.

Another potential drawback is that the Legislature passed a law this year requiring high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. starting in 2026, in hopes of having fewer students coming to school sleep-deprived. Broward is seeking an exception to that law, but if it doesn’t get it, students attending school four days a week could have to stay until 5 p.m. or later, potentially impacting sports and extra-curricular activities.

Board member Allen Zeman said he think the idea is worth pursuing right now.

“Change is hard, and if we’re going to make a change on this magnitude, I think it has to be some that clearly gets us to one of our strategic goals,” relating to student achievement, he said. “And in this case the research doesn’t support that at least as much as we learned so far.”

But other board members said they’d like to see more data as well as get feedback from parents, teachers and principals. The district is expected to discuss the proposal again in February.

Board member Dan Foganholi said he’d be interested in starting a program in his district in southeast Broward. He said the extra day could give struggling students a chance to get extra help and other students a chance to volunteer or get internships with the local business community.

“A lot of the data is going to be slim when you’re being innovative,” he said.