School districts and universities are taking cues from the business world and instituting four-day weeks, a trend that some say could become the norm as gas prices and energy costs continue to rise.

Experimenting with four-day school weeks is becoming popular in some of the country's most remote school districts, where buses travel hundreds of miles for student pickups, drop offs, and sporting events. Some colleges and universities have begun offering four-day weeks for employees and students, although most campuses don't close shop on Fridays. Instead, administrators are authorizing alternative schedules as an employee-friendly policy designed to soothe the sting of increasingly costly daily commutes.

Some school systems, during the past year, have eliminated Friday from the work schedule in Minnesota, Kentucky, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.

Bob Dolazel, superintendent of the rural White Pine School District in Nevada, said piloting the four-day week in the district's K-12 school has saved on energy costs, but has also created more classroom time for students.

"Our motivation at the time was improving the amount of instructional time our students have," said Dolazel, schools chief since 2000. Sporting events, he said, cut down on students' class time because some games were more than 100 miles from White Pines, meaning teams would have to leave with several hours left in the school day. With only 115 students in the school, having a couple dozen leave for an athletic event was detrimental, Dolazel said. Now, all athletic events are scheduled for Fridays and Saturdays, meaning class is not interrupted by team schedules.

With budgets in trouble in most states today, colleges and school districts see alternative scheduling as a way to save money. The White Pines School District is facing a 14 percent budget cut for the coming school year. But Dolazel said employees and students have praised the three-day weekend, even though each remaining school day had to be extended by about two hours.

"If gas prices were a dollar a gallon, they'd still want to have a four-day school week," he said. "They really enjoy it. … It has overwhelming support here."

Following the lead of its local government, Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Mich., began offering four-day weeks to its employees in July. In June, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced a four-day workweek for government employees, who work 10-hour days Monday-Thursday.

Ted Montgomery, a spokesman for the university, said it was deemed unfeasible to offer four-day weeks for students. Employees can choose which day they take off during the week, as long as they coordinate it with class schedules. The pilot program ends Aug. 30. Oakland officials will decide whether to extend the four-day option into the fall semester, Montgomery said.

"I don't see why, if all the results come in and there have been no issues, that it wouldn't be continued," said Montgomery, who participated in the four-day week pilot for three weeks and saved about $120 on gas. "I haven't heard of any problems so far, honestly."