Extended-day education 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. The increased labor force participation of mothers with young children--married or single--is expected to affect the need for out-of-home care for school age children. Data from the 1987-88 and 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)--conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics to collect information on school programs--were examined to determine the percentages of both elementary and combined schools (schools that include grades higher than eighth and lower than seventh) that reported having extended-day programs and the corresponding percentages of students participating in them. Results indicated that from 1987-88 to 1990-91: (1) the percentage of schools offering extended-day programs increased, and in both years, these programs were found more often in private schools than in public schools; (2) rural schools reported less availability of extended-day programs than urban schools; (3) 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. Additional analyses of SASS data are needed to determine the effect of school size on provision of extended-day programs, and the availability of such programs in schools serving large percentages of students from low-income families. Research beyond SASS data is needed to determine whether extended-day programs improve school performance, and whether such programs are adequate to meet the needs of single-parent dual-working-parent families. (HTH)