In 1980, the Colorado State Legislature passed legislation which enabled 12 southeastern Colorado school districts with enrollments from 30 to 330 to experiment with a 4-day school week as an alternative to reducing programs. Each district was allowed to determine which weekday its schools would not be in session, length of the school day, and actual number of days in the school year. To evaluate the program questionnaires were sent to students in grades 4-8 and grades 9-12, to all parents of school-age children, and to all certified and non-certified staff. Findings indicated that, although the districts implemented the 4-day schedule with many variations and different objectives, all districts demonstrated the potential of the schedule to save energy and transportation costs and to reduce student and teacher absenteeism. Achievement levels for students were comparable to their performance before going to the innovative schedule. Parents, teachers, and students all favored the 4-day week over the 5-day week by a wide margin. Strategic considerations (increased energy saving versus convenient extracurricular activity scheduling) surrounded the decision to take Monday or Friday off. The districts achieved notable cost savings in gasoline consumption and maintenance costs for buses, electrical consumption, and substitute teacher costs. (Author/CM)