Although most extracurricular activities are fun and helpful, making them a necessity would be like making school longer. Some students don't participate in extracurricular activities because they don't want to or their parents don't want them to participate in them, but if it does become a necessity, then students would participate but some of them might not be interested at all and that would just lead to boredom and lack of participation.

First of all, students that don't participate in extracurricular activities do it for a reason. They might not have the time to participate in the activities between all their schoolwork and chores at home. They might have a lot of work from school because they take harder courses and their parents would expect them to do their chores. They might not be interested at what's being offered at their school because they have other unique interests and even if they were interested in the activities, they might not care about the activities because it's not going to be helpful for them and it is just going to consume and waste their time.

Another reason students don't participate in extracurricular activities is because their parents don't want them to. Most extracurricular activities take place after school and parents might not have the time pick up their kids from school because of their work hours. They might too busy to pick up kids or they live far from the school and it takes too much time to get to school. The parents might not want their child to take the activities because they want to spend more time together with their family and taking extracurricular activities might take away that family time. The parents also might not want their child so interested in the activity that he/she would stop caring about school and academics and do bad in school.

Finally, if kids do take an extracurricular activity that they are not interested in, they would feel like school got longer and would be angry about it because in a way, school did get longer. The activities could be so time consuming that they would have less time for other things like doing their homework or chores and, most importantly, relaxing. The activities could be so time consuming that they wouldn't have time to study for tests and quizzes and they wouldn't do as well as they used to in school because they don't have as much time to study as they used to.

In conclusion, the principal should keep the extracurricular activities optional and not make them a necessity because extracurricular activities and after school activities are supposed to be for students who have extra time and want to do something else in their free time. They are not for students that have a lot of trouble keeping up with their schoolwork. The students that don't take extracurricular activities don't participate for a good reason and some parents don't allow their kids to take extracurricular activities because they know what's best for their kids and they know it would be too time consuming for them.