Financing Expanded Learning Time in Schools: A Look at Five District-Expanded Time Schools

Over the last several years, public education in the U.S. has experienced a remarkable growth in the number of schools that have expanded their schedules beyond the conventional calendar of 180 6.5-hour days. Spurred by significant policy activity at the federal, state, and local levels, more and more educators have capitalized on opportunities to increase their school days and years to put in place a host of whole-school strategies that aim to improve educational quality and outcomes. In its latest count, National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) identified over 1,500 of these schools, about 900 of which are district (i.e., non-charter) schools. The educators implementing these reforms at schools serving more than half a million students--the vast majority of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds--believe that having more time in productive learning environments, offers the potential for a higher quality education and a stronger future. Today, the many district schools that have undergone a conversion to expanded school time (or that were established with a longer day and/or year) offer the field of education a valuable supply of information about how such expansion can be implemented despite inevitable challenges around financing, programming, and staffing. Indeed, educators and policymakers seeking to generate school improvement through expanded time would do well to learn from those who have engaged in such efforts before them. They also would benefit from understanding the wide variety of ways in which district schools have implemented, paid for, and structured expanded school time, if only to appreciate that there is no single model or set of models that defines the field. This finance study is produced by NCTL, in partnership with the educational consulting group Cross & Joftus. Taking a careful look at five different models of expanded-time district schools, this study unpacks the realities of implementing more school time--the funding sources, challenges, and opportunities--from financial and educational perspectives. The authors examine both these aspects because they are inextricably linked, and one cannot understand financing without describing the programming and staffing that the dollars pay for. Their hope is that these brief case studies, together with the analysis of common themes and key findings, will offer several cost models and provide some preliminary answers to the question of how schools and districts pay for expanded learning time. The five case studies include: (1) Griffith Elementary School (Balsz, Arizona); (2) Dr. Orlando Edreira Academy (Elizabeth, New Jersey); (3) McGlone Elementary School (Denver, Colorado); (4) Elmhurst Community Prep (Oakland, California); and (5) Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School (Boston, Massachusetts).