There are plenty of reasons to lobby for more classroom time and an expanded school calendar. The obvious need to spend more quality time teaching students the core academic subjects is quite frankly reason enough to want America’s schoolchildren to be in session for more hours and days. The achievement gaps for targeted groups of students certainly warrants, at the very least, school days that incorporate increased time for more individualized learning or tutoring. A separate observation is that the range of social and extracurricular distractions available to young people may be dumbing down their academic motivation and attentiveness. The web 2.0 explosion has essentially given students unlimited access to social webs at any time of the day. These media driven, social networking, and entertainment platforms can be viewed as both helping and hurting the good work being done in our classrooms. Whatever the case, classroom teachers are being challenged to adapt to student populations that are more technologically driven. As young people use electronic forums and gadgets to learn from, dialogue with, and network with their peers across all kinds of geographical and other boundaries, teachers may discover that their students are more open to extending the regular school day to accommodate their social and learning networks around the globe.          

Expanded school calendars will give students more time to explore subject areas and activities that are not accessible during the regular school year due to curriculum and scheduling constraints. Flexible and creative school calendars could actually lead to more diverse and broader curriculums spread across a longer school day or an extended school year. School leaders could produce daily schedules that provide a more optimal mix of rigorous and less rigorous classes across more school hours or days. Administrators do their best to offer enough classes per academic area based on the number of qualified teachers and their classroom schedules. The teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms exacerbate the problems schools have with making sure students get to enroll in classes that interest them. Not being able to accommodate the level of student interest for certain courses underscores how important it is to provide more classroom days for the more popular courses. Longer school days could be used to allow students the time to participate in PE, music, arts, and other elective classes which may not fit into their regular class schedule.

The complexities surrounding our global marketplace will continue to require a new generation of workers, citizens, and leaders who are highly skilled and proficient in the core academic areas, specialized disciplines, and cross-cultural professions. More course offerings in the foreign languages, technology fields, and topics related to medical and health sciences will demand the hiring of teaching professionals who may only be available during afterschool hours, school breaks, or weekends. In order to schedule more practitioners who are skilled in the professions and industries that are attractive to 21^st century youth, schools will almost certainly have to create time and space beyond the regular school day. Most full time professionals are more than willing to mentor and train students if school officials will work out mutually agreeable schedules that don’t interfere with their other priorities. The reality is that the paradigm shift occurring in K-12 education mandates a school day and school calendar that is more flexible and more inclusive of new scheduling formats and professionals who are skilled in nontraditional disciplines and vocations.