At Reed School—

Parents Concerned Over Quality Of Recess

By Larissa Lytwyn

With her 8-year-old son, a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School, having recently transitioned from the district’s special education CAN program into second grade, Joanne Marcinek knows the importance of building her son’s sense of self-initiative.

“My son, who has experienced developmental delays in motor skills, is encouraged to be active,” she said. “Recess breaks up the day. Adults have the ability to carve out their down time; children need the same kind of break from periods of intensive learning.”

While Ms Marcinek said she appreciated the value of physical education, she said recess was important because it fostered “self-directed” time use.

Recently, Ms Marcinek became concerned over what she described as the “trend” of minimizing and eventually eliminating students’ recess.

“I first became aware of it when I was talking to one of my friends, whose child entered the fifth through eighth grade Redding [John Read] Middle School this year,” said Ms Marcinek. “The schedule is very structured and it has been a huge, difficult adjustment for this child.”

While Head O’ Meadow, Hawley, Middle Gate, and Sandy Hook Schools have approximately a half-hour lunch and half-hour recess period every day, the fifth and sixth graders at Newtown’s Reed Intermediate School receive an approximate 30-minute lunch period.

“While my fifth grader has the opportunity to go outside during lunch, by the time he finishes eating, he hardly has the time to go out,” said Reed parent Chris Fadus.

Physical education classes, she continued, take place twice a week and students also receive a free study hall period three days a week.

Still, Ms Fadus said, the lack of daily recess time has left her son stressed and tired.

“They’re still so young,” said Ms Fadus. “I think it’s sad that a child in fifth grade can’t have a regular recess.”

But, said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Alice Jackson, “I don’t think that the schools have a ‘harsh’ academic schedule.”

The job of the teachers and administrators, she said, was to “nurture growth.”

She suggested that often, students who are stressed have parents who are pushing them to be top in their class. “We’ve had second grade parents ask us about class rank,” Ms Jackson said. She is also concerned about students being overly scheduled after school.

“There are some families where students are involved in something every day after school so that the family doesn’t have time to sit down and have dinner and conversation together,” she said.

Reed Principal Donna Denniston recently addressed parents’ concerns over recess through a report she wrote and released through one of the school’s weekly newsletters to families.

Last year, out of concern for children’s rising obesity rates and related health problems, the state legislature proposed a bill that would mandate 20-minutes of recess every day for students up to sixth grade.

The bill was later modified to include physical education time in the 20 minutes; a standard most schools across the state already met.

Upon researching the durations of recess for fifth and sixth graders around the state, Ms Denniston found that the average minutes of recess per day was 11.6.

During Reed’s lunch periods, Ms Denniston said, students are required to stay in the cafeteria for at least ten minutes, “otherwise,” she wrote in her report, “there would be children who wouldn’t eat at all.”

She concluded that children typically eat for 10 to 15 minutes then go outside for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Though, Ms Denniston said, “From the data that we have collected, it appears that we are well within the average for schools containing fifth and sixth grade, that fact alone does not necessarily make it the right thing to do for kids.”

Reed was designed to help students transition from elementary to middle school.

Granted, said Ms Denniston, “Our students do not have as much recess as they did in elementary school, but it is more than they will have in middle school.”

In addition, Ms Denniston said, Reed’s faculty has worked to give students as much physical education activity as possible by lengthening gym periods and implementing Project Adventure, a class in which students learn the value of teamwork through physically demanding games and activities.

“At Reed, students average 105 minutes in fifth grade and 115 minutes in sixth grade of gym or Project Adventure per week,” said Ms Denniston. “In the elementary schools, the average gym per week for fourth graders is 70 minutes. So, there is actually more physical activity integrated into the [Reed] curriculum.”

Still, Ms Fadus and Ms Marcinek maintain that their concern over recess is not merely related to their children’s degree of physical activity.

“Recess gives children the freedom to do what they want, to manage their own time,” said Ms Marcinek. “I think that is so important, and with reduced recess, that becomes less and less possible.”

Lynda Weber said her fifth grade son initially had difficulty adjusting to the change.

“They are so unbelievably stressed at this very young age,” she said. “My son has come home and talked about how stressed his friends and he can be.”

She also cited what she described as the “significance” of a report, Guidelines for Facilities, Equipment and Instructional Materials in Elementary Education, issued by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) in July 2001.

“The report outlined the standards by which space should be used for recess and physical education activity in terms of size, location, and equipment needs,” Ms Weber said. “Recess and physical education were both included in the report as separate but obviously necessary [entities].”

In September 2004, NASPE released a press release advocating the imperativeness of keeping both physical education and recess in schools, despite “mounting pressures nationwide to improve test scores and to help students succeed academically.”

In the press release, NASPE President Dolly Lambdin, PhD, said, “With soaring obesity rates and increased interest in sedentary activities, a six-hour or longer school day is too long for children to go without breaks and without opportunities for substantive physical activity.”

The release also stated, “While physical education is vitally important for helping children learn how to be physically active and healthy for a lifetime, recess serves a different need in allowing children personal time to think their own thoughts, talk with friends and practice choosing and appropriately participating in physical activity. While NASPE continually and strongly advocates for quality, daily physical education to be a regular part of each child’s day, physical education does not replace the need for children to have recess breaks.”

Ms Denniston said she is not impervious to such concerns.

Though she admitted in her report to families that “the curriculum based [physical] activity is not free time, the classroom teachers also work to provide snack periods for students, so that they have some additional free time each day.”

Ms Fadus said that she has been told by Reed administration that budgetary constraints curtail any time teachers would have to monitor students during an extra recess period.

“But I knows several parents like myself who would be willing to volunteer their time to monitor students during a recess period,” said Ms Fadus.

“While I appreciate that offer,” said Ms Denniston, “we are required to have certified staff members monitoring the students at all times [during the school day], in addition to any parent volunteers.”

Ms Fadus also expressed concern over the appearance of the Reed playground, which she described as “prisonlike” in its structure. “It’s not a very inviting place,” she said.

The playground is a fenced-in area of blacktop adjacent to the school’s basketball court. In fair weather, students can play outside with hula-hoops, jump ropes, and other equipment.

Ms Denniston said that the faculty and administration had no role in the physical design of the playground. Still, Ms Denniston said she was “open” to any suggestions to increase the grounds’ aesthetic appeal.

“In every decision we make at Reed, our goal is to find the balance that will both meet [students’] developmental needs and ready them for the challenges ahead,” Ms Denniston wrote in her report. “We must also balance the students’ needs for instructional time, because any minutes that we add to another activity will come from instructional time.”

Ms Denniston invites parents to share their comments or concerns regarding recess, or any other issue, at Reed by emailing her at dennistond@newtown.k12.ct.us.