More class periods next year will mean more chances for high schoolers to explore potential careers.

When it comes to electives — ranging from business to health care to manufacturing and many others in between — students at Free State and Lawrence high schools are lining up to enroll in classes often out of reach as recently as a semester ago, when student schedules were constricted by meeting core graduation requirements.

Come this fall, students will find themselves with a seventh regular class period added to their schedules, made possible by shrinking each period by nine minutes a day, three days per week.

Administrators who do the math see plenty of positives, even when considering that their schools will lose 27 minutes of instruction per week.

“It’s a price worth paying, to give kids an additional class credit,” says Ed West, principal at Free State High School.

The extra period is among the operational changes coming to high school campuses this fall to accompany physical adjustments such as upgrades to cafeterias, renovations to rooms, and installation of replacement and additional hall lockers.

The changes are part of the district’s “Redesigning for Student Success” initiative, a sweeping program sending dozens of teachers into different schools as elementary school stops after fifth grade, junior highs become middle schools, and the two high schools welcome ninth-graders to campus.

The seven-period day — up from the previous six — will give high schoolers more opportunities to try out classes that may interest them, said Frank Harwood, the district’s chief operations officer. During their four years, students will have seven more chances to take electives, whether it’s taking photos, learning Chinese, playing the cello, building motors or anything else.

“One of the things that’s important about going to a large, comprehensive high school is all the opportunities that you have,” Harwood said. “But if you don’t have time to do anything but the required subjects, it doesn’t make sense to have the smorgasbord when your plate is so small.”

Jackie McCullough, who just graduated from Free State, wishes she would have had more time to take health classes in school, even though she still managed to turn her medical interest into volunteering at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, interning with the hospital’s chief of surgery and working at Brandon Woods.

Providing extra time to explore so-called “career pathways” should help all students in the long run, she recently told members of the Lawrence school board.

“It gets you an eye into what you may want to do in the future,” McCullough said.

Scott Morgan, a board member, said that such career pathways could help in other ways, too. Expanding electives can expose students to topics that might enhance their opportunities to enter high-skill, high-demand and high-wage jobs.

And more interest, he indicated, should equate to improved attendance and academic performance.

“Our overall graduation rate will go up, as we make school more relevant for kids,” he said.