This commentary is part of a series of articles prepared by Voices of Educators, a nonprofit coalition designed to foster debate and public policy change within Hawai'i's public education system, in partnership with The Honolulu Advertiser. It appears in Focus on the first Sunday of the month.

Voices of Educators is composed of some of Hawai'i's top education experts, including: Liz Chun, executive director of Good Beginnings Alliance; Patricia Hamamoto, superintendent of the Department of Education; Donald B. Young, of the College of Education, University of Hawai'i; Joan Lee Husted and Roger Takabayashi from the Hawaii State Teachers Association; Sharon Mahoe of the Hawai'i Teacher Standards Board; Alvin Nagasako of the Hawai'i Government Employees Association; and Robert Witt of the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. Visit their Web site at www.hawaii.edu/voice.

Children today live in a world that has dramatically changed in the past 50 years, and it is the responsibility of our educational system to stay abreast of these developments and provide this next generation of citizens with the knowledge and skills they will need as the workforce of tomorrow.

Today's students are extremely knowledgeable about themselves, their communities, and the world around them, thanks to advances in technology that give them easy access to information in real time, around the clock. Accordingly, our schools today place great emphasis on preparing students for participation in this global community, helping them to become productive members of society who actively question the conditions in which they live.

Preparing these children for the future, however, presents our school system with a number of challenges, one of the most critical being the urgent need to keep pace with students' ever-increasing knowledge base. We are always alert to new ways we can transform our instructional service delivery system to better prepare students for success as adults.

One such possibility is a re-examination of existing educational summer programs. The Department of Education's move to a single school calendar has created a standard summer break, which offers the perfect opportunity to rethink the use of this window of time.

Summer break is not only a time for credit recovery — it should also be a time for students to expand their personal horizons. Credit recovery is only applicable to a few students and is therefore, by definition, narrow in scope. We must re-evaluate our traditional programming and work to increase and expand current summer learning opportunities to more fully address students' academic needs and special interests — in short, we must redefine the concept of summer school.

In order for students to live and thrive in a global society they need both a rigorous academic background and a diverse set of life experiences to enable them to be well-rounded individuals. Public school systems dedicated to helping every student achieve academic excellence as well as his or her personal goals use the entire calendar year to accomplish this task; realistically, if we hope to meet students' intellectual and developmental needs and ensure their future success, limiting instruction to the traditional 180 days per year is simply not a feasible option anymore.

Summer break can be used to extend learning, not only by increasing the amount of available instructional time, but also by providing students with access to programs that they would not ordinarily be able to take advantage of during the regular school year. It presents us with a chance to "think outside of the box" and collaborate with post-secondary institutions, nonprofit and local community organizations, businesses, and other entities to make rich, multi-faceted experiences available to all students during periods when school is not in session.

The Department of Education is working with its partners in the public and private sectors to provide students with a wide array of educational programs during the summers. These programs include camps, internships, distance learning courses, institutes, hands-on service/volunteer projects, community development projects, research in the field, international study, enrichment activities, subject-focused learning centers and academies, visual and performing arts programs, and advanced or accelerated courses.

We are excited to embark on this new journey and to have the opportunity to introduce students to a variety of positive, innovative learning activities and programs throughout the calendar year. This expansion of our educational offerings will nurture their skills and talents and support, motivate, and challenge them to improve themselves.