Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
By: Sam Barnett / May 23, 2011
For six years, Lynn Morton and her parent activist group POWER-PAC have fought for recess in Chicago’s elementary schools. With the release Monday of a new Chicago Public Schools guide to
implementing recess, it looks like the work is finally paying off. For six years, Lynn Morton and her parent activist group POWER-PAC have fought for recess in Chicago’s elementary schools. With the release Monday of a new Chicago Public Schools guide to implementing recess, it looks like the work is finally paying off.
The guide, developed in tandem with community groups like POWER-PAC’s parent organization Community Organizing and Family Issues, outlines the process by which individual schools can go about putting a play break back in the school day.
The guide recommends that next year be a planning year and that the following year, recess could be a reality for all children. However, the guide stops short of a mandate.
“Recess should be considered a vital and healthy part of a complete school day for all of our students,” said former Interim Schools CEO Terry Mazany in a statement.
The CPS guide is the latest in a series of victories for recess proponents. In December, POWER-PAC helped persuade the state legislature to form a task force to investigate barriers to recess at schools and make recommendations on overcoming them.
Also, the North Side parent group Raise Your Hand joined the effort with the launch of its Fit for Learning Initiative. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has come out in support of recess.
“Play is a basic human right,” said Nancy Zwick, who chairs a wellness committee at Inter-American Magnet, during Fit for Learning’s first open parent meeting. “Our kids need it as a part of every day of their lives.”
Most Chicago schools have been without recess since the 1970s. Only a handful currently schedule regular recess. The decision to do so is left up to individual schools, a provision of the contract between the district and the Chicago Teachers’ Union.
Under the contract, a committee comprised of administrators, teachers and parents votes to determine a school’s scheduling policy, including whether to schedule recess. However, union officials say that process doesn’t happen anymore.
The new guide clarifies and tweaks that process by requiring schools to set up a recess committee. That committee must hold open meetings before the end of each school year to decide whether an individual school will offer recess the next year.
And though CTU initially pushed back at Emanuel’s recess proposal in April, CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey recently said that the union was “warm” to the idea of recess.
“We think recess is actually good for us as well,” he said, noting the opportunity for more teacher break time throughout the day. “When I show up at a school, often the first thing a teacher says to me is ‘I gotta go to the bathroom.’”
But universal recess may still be a long way off. POWER-PAC has also seen multiple legislative efforts to mandate recess in Illinois fail. Those who oppose it worry about the top-down imposition of a policy on schools that lack sufficient resources. Also, some worry that children in high-crime neighborhoods could be put in danger by playing outside.
Recess proponents say such situations are still manageable. They also point out that recess for children in poor minority communities may be the only time for children to spend unstructured time outdoors.
“[A lack of] physical activity and being outside in general is something that disproportionately affects minority communities,” said Tracy Occomy Crowder, a senior organizer at Community Organizing and Family Issues. “Those are actually the areas where you really need to make it happen. This could be one opportunity for the kids to do anything outside, which makes it more imperative for recess to actually happen in those communities.”
Morton says she became involved in the fight for recess after noticing a child in the hallway of her son’s school. The little boy would be sitting, by himself, outside a classroom.
The boy had misbehaved and was being given a time-out by the teacher. Without a regularly scheduled recess, there was no way for stir-crazy students to get out of their classroom.
When he started feeling antsy, the little boy acted up, earning himself a reprieve.
“He just needed a break,” Morton said. “All kids need that.”
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
Recess seems like such a good idea on a day like today--absolutely beautiful weather. Who wouldn't want to be outdoors for a part of the day?
But remember that we live in Chicago. When you count up the rain days, the days that the ground is covered with snow and/or ice, and the days the temps are below freezing, it adds up to a good chunk of the school year.
Where do the kids go for recess when the weather doesn't permit them to go outdoors? In the classrooms? The hallways? (The gym is already used for phys ed classes.)
Implementing recess is going to take a lot of planning.
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
my kids went to catholic school and rarely missed recess. When it was bone chillingly cold they stayed inside in the classroom and played board games.
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
wear the uniform everyday--get a lunch from you, do not have to have free breakfast in the AM since you feed them, get good grades, you get their grades and talk to the teachers at parent night every time they have it and you never go to school drunk or high, you are on the PTA-or at least dontate, your kids have great attendance, and your kids don't hear flying bullets outside during recess. Good for you-you send them to a private school for a reason.
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
my kids finished up in public school. and one is currently in our neighborhood school that has recess. Not sure what any of your list except for the bullets has to do with recess or why only private school students should get recess. It is a pain for the teachers. Nobody likes recess duty. Is that your issue?
"No such thing as cold weather...
...just inappropriate clothing." -- Nancy Zwick
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
"Developing a School Recess Plan," and I wondered why it was completed by CPS and issued at this time? The reason I wondered why this was the case was because SB7 makes much of the plan moot. CPS was fully aware that the bill was proceeding much of the time it was writing this document. All existing CTU contractual provisions relating to the length of the school day will be in the language of the bill "rendered null and void because it involved a prohibited subject of collective bargaining," due to section 10 of SB 7 as amended once it is signed by the Governor. Article 4-13 of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) collective bargaining agreement that creates the Closed Campus Review Committee will be void and that is the focus of much of the CPS plan.
This of course assumes that CPS will exercise its rights under new subjection (b) of the revised 115 ILCS 5/4.5 to not allow bargaining over the length of the school/ work day, class size, class staffing and assignment, class schedules, or hours and places of instruction. Based on everything that Mayor Emanuel has said CPS intends to exercise that option.
There is no reason to have the big meetings with teachers, parents, or votes, administratively CPS can order these changes at any school it chooses too once SB 7 is signed. Many of the planning issues discussed in the CPS document are relevant but they can be implemented administratively in consultation with a school's LSC, it if has one. Therefore, the real question is not the procedure in this document, but rather what the new CPS administration plans on doing with school based time. Mayor Emanuel in his transition plan states: ". . . the longer day will first be piloted and subsequently rolled out across all Chicago Public Schools by the 2012/13 school year, allowing students more time in the classroom and giving teachers more time to prepare and plan."
Really it depends on what the pilot options for elementary schools are going to be and how the entire structure of the school day will be delineated. Mayor Emanuel has not definitively indicated how much longer a longer school day would be. I have seen discussions in the media ranging from one hour to two hours longer per day. It seems to make little sense for schools to go through the process established in Article 4-13 when it is going to be moot and the exact length of the working day for teachers has yet to be established.
SB7 explicitly allows the CTU to bargain over how much if anything teachers would be paid for working a longer school day, but it allows CPS to implement the longer day unilaterally any time after the bill is signed even if there is no agreement on how much if anything teachers would be paid for this time. The bill states: "During this bargaining, the educational employer shall not be precluded from implementing its decision."
So given all of this I am not sure exactly what this new plan means or actual authority it has in relation to the restructuring of the elementary school day that will take place.
Rod Estvan
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
and Brizard should learn the WASTE of time and money this document is. Rod is correct. My school has recess EVERYDAY and we do not have special permission or a recess thesis to tell us all about how to do it. Classic example of how P-12 Management tries to show why they 'need' to exist. All that money and manhours wasted.
Hey P-12, you have time on your hands, go help at a school 2 days a week. You can help with recess and see if what you wrote works!
CPS releases new guide to bring back recess
I am a graduate of CPS schools in 1960's/70's. We had recess for the most part every day. There were play ground monitors as well as adult supervision. This was a much needed break in the day to socialize and get fresh air. We could go home for lunch or get lunch at school and have recess. In 2003 I changed careers to become a science teacher and was shocked to experience the shortened days and compressed schedules. It seems to me that the course load for elementary students is so packed that there is little room for students to breath. If the school day is returned to a more sensible schedule and maybe reconsidering whether a foreign language needs to be taught in schools where students can't read or write their native English language, then recess would be possible. We can see how obesity is crippling our students mentally and physically as well as unhealthy lifestyles. Gym is not really physical anymore. The tension levels for adults and students is so high it feels like the schools could just explode. If we want a healthier society then we need to have healthier schools that respect basic human needs.
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