There will be no four-day school week in Forest Lake.
The school board voted 6-1 Thursday night to end such consideration.
Forest Lake schools leaders had begun a preliminary investigation into changing to a four-day week as a way to save money. But at Thursday's school board meeting, Superintendent Lynn Steenblock opposed the initiative and said the district should pursue other means to trim $3.5 million from its budget for the 2009-2010 school year.
Steenblock's comments came two days after a community meeting about a potential four-day week. Of the 150 people at Tuesday's meeting, most were opposed, some of them strongly.
As a result, Steenblock felt that "the community is not really behind it," said Forest Lake schools spokesman Ross Bennett.
Community residents were troubled by the longer days that the new schedule would require, fearing they would interfere with evening activities.
Some also said that adding an hour to a school day would be just too long for children and that not much learning would occur during that time.
The district cancelled two other community meetings on the subject that had been scheduled for later this month.
