Alternative Approaches to ORGANIZING the School Day and Year

School Administrator, March, 1994 by Julia Anderson

Schools with an extended-year program also may offer an extended day or a reorganized day to provide additional learning opportunities for children, including remediation and enrichment. Some school districts have adopted a shortened week (four days), another type of alternative time use.

Some of the innovations based on time allocations include these:

* Extended Day: A longer school day and/or before- and after-school programs; usually includes a traditional academic day (e.g., 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.) with extended time for learning opportunities and support services for social needs.

* Extended Year: School years in excess of 200 days for various reasons, including those cited above.

* Year-round: Schools that redistribute the 180 days, allowing for shortened summer breaks and several breaks during the school year; schools are categorized as single-track or multitrack. (Multi-track means students attend on a rotating basis because the school cannot accommodate all students at one time.)

* Reorganized Day. Varying the length of the learning experience based on student need or curriculum demands, i.e., block scheduling.

Promising Practices

The following alternative models of school time are illustrative; neither the list of models nor the list of schools is comprehensive. The purpose here is to provide information on such practices to stimulate schools and communities around the country to undertake their own experiments in allocating time for improved learning.

Selected as representative examples are the Murfreesboro, Tenn., district, extended day; the Beacon schools in Oakland, Calif., extended year; Emerson Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., year-round; and Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford, Maine, reorganized day.

Extended Day

The Murfreesboro City Schools run an extended day program on a year-round basis. The program operates from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Three schools are open an additional three hours for adult learning). The academic day is from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The district serves more than 4,000 children in eight elementary schools; more than half participate in the Extended School Program.

The Extended School Program provides academic learning experiences, skill-building, exploration, experimentation, and problem-solving. It also provides increased learning time for those students who require remediation. All students, moreover, receive individual attention from trained adults and child care at a minimal cost to parents (maximum $26 a week). Only families that use the service pay for it.

Students receive up to four hours and 45 minutes of additional learning time a day during the regular school year, and they can participate in a rewarding summer program.

The Murfreesboro program represents a highly efficient use of costly school facilities by providing additional learning time for elementary students as well as adult learners. Interested adults can take computer training courses as well as basic reading, math and, GED courses during the hours of the extended program.