Issue Brief
Extended-Day Programs in Elementary and Combined Schools
April 1996
IB-5-96
(NCES 96-843) Ordering Information
Extended-day programs may serve a variety of purposes for children and their parents, from providing a safe recreation environment to academic enrichment, but the most often-cited purpose of these programs is providing adult supervision of children (Seppanen, deVries, and Seligson 1993). The increased labor force participation of mothers with young children (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1994) and the increased numbers of single-parent families (Center for the Study of Social Policy 1993) might be expected to impact needs for child care outside the home for school-aged children. In 1991, 1.6 million children aged 5– 14 years old (i.e., about 7.6 percent of the population in this age range) were estimated to be in self-care or unsupervised by an adult for at least part of the time their mothers worked (Casper, Hawkins, and O’Connell 1994).Evidence that a number of children are being left to care for themselves raises important questions about the availability and extent of participation in before- or after-school child-care programs. Has the availability of these programs increased over time? How does program availability and participation vary by school sector and geographic location? Data available from the 1987–88 and 1990–91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), can be used to address these sorts of questions about school-based extended-day programs. This brief examines the percentages of elementary and combined schools that reported having extended-day programs in these years and the corresponding percentages of students participating in them. (A combined school includes grades higher than the eighth and lower than the seventh.)
From 1987–88 to 1990–91, the percentage of schools offering extended-day programs increased; in both years, these programs were more often found in private schools than in public schools.
In both 1987–88 and 1990–91, fewer than half of all elementary and combined schools had extended-day programs, but the percentage of both public and private schools offering extended-day programs increased during this period (table 1). In both of these years, a higher proportion of private schools had extended-day programs than did public schools. In 1990–91, for example, about 25 percent of public schools offered these programs, compared to approximately 43 percent of private schools. Similarly, in 1990–91, the percentage of students participating in these programs was higher in private schools than in public schools.
Rural schools less frequently reported the availability of extended-day programs than did urban schools.
On average, the percentages of public and private rural schools reporting available extended-day programs in 1987–88 and 1990–91 were less than half of the percentages of central city and urban fringe schools. Among public schools in 1987–88, about 25 percent of schools in central city locations offered these programs, compared to approximately 7 percent in rural areas; in 1990–91, these percentages were 36 percent and about 15 percent, respectively (table 1). However, among both public and private schools that had extended-day programs in 1990–91, no significant differences were found between central city and urban fringe schools and rural schools in the percentages of students who participated in such programs.
In both 1987–88 and 1990–91, extended-day programs were more available and had higher participation rates in public and private schools where 50 percent or more of the students enrolled were minorities than in schools where fewer than 20 percent of the enrolled students were minorities.
In public schools in 1990–91, approximately 32 percent of high-minority schools (i.e., schools with 50 percent or more minority students) offered extended-day programs, while about 22 percent of low-minority schools (i.e., schools with fewer than 20 percent minority students) offered such programs (table 2). Similarly, in 1990–91 greater percentages of high-minority private schools offered extended-day programs than did low-minority private schools—about 57 percent and about 36 percent, respectively. In addition, among both public and private schools in 1990–91, the percentages of students participating in extended-day programs were higher in high-minority schools than in low-minority schools. For example, about 21 percent of the students in high-minority private schools participated in these programs, compared to about 16 percent of the students in low-minority private schools.
Discussion
These data clearly show that there were more extended-day programs available in schools in 1990–91 than there were in 1987–88. These programs continued to be more available in private than public schools, in urban than rural schools, and in medium-to-high minority than low-minority schools. These findings also raise other research questions. For example, does extended-day program provision also vary by the size of the school? Are the patterns of program provision similar for schools serving different minority subgroups (e.g., for Hispanic versus Asian students)? What about the availability of extended-day programs in schools serving large percentages of students from low-income families? Further analyses of the SASS data can provide answers to these questions. In fact, the recent availability of SASS data for 1993–94 makes possible the examination of these issues over three time points.
Other related questions that reach beyond the SASS data include whether the provision of extended-day programs leads to improved school performance for participants, and whether the availability of extended-day and other types of child-care programs is adequate to meet the needs of single-parent and dual-working-parent families.
References and Related Publications:
Casper, L.M., Hawkins, M., and O’Connell, M. (1994). Who’s Minding the Kids? Childcare Arrangements: Fall 1991. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, P70–36. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Center for the Study of Social Policy. (1993). Kids Count Data Book: State Profiles of Child Well-Being. Washington, D.C.: Author.
Choy, S.P., Henke, R.R., Alt, M.N., Medrich, E.A., and Bobbitt, S.A. (1993). Schools and Staffing in the United States: A Statistical Profile, 1990–91. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (NCES Report No. 93–146).
Choy, S.P., Medrich, E.A., Henke, R.R., and Bobbitt, S.A. (1992). Schools and Staffing in the United States: A Statistical Profile, 1987–88. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (NCES Report No. 92–120).
Seppanen, P.S., Kaplan de Vries, D., and Seligson, M. (1993). National Study of Before- and After-School Programs: Executive Summary. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Policy and Planning.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1994). Statistical Abstracts of the United States: 1993. (113th edition). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
