Recess at Revere.
One of the few positives in Rahm Emanuel’s demand for a longer school day was the inclusion of a twenty minute recess in the elementary schools.
Many Chicago public schools hadn’t had recess scheduled as part of the school day for years.
If you thought CPS students now had twenty minutes for supervised free play, think again.
Catalyst reports on what has happened to Rahm’s recess.
Some school principals ignored the plan and never built recess into the schedule.
Many schools took recess away from students for disciplinary reasons, including failing to finish their work.
Rather than using it for play, students were expected to be quiet, do jumping jacks or walk up and down the black top.
Not surprisingly the situation with recess appears to be worse in the poorest neighborhoods.
Revere Elementary is a case study that shows how schools in high-poverty neighborhoods struggled to implement the new policy.
Principal Veronica Thompson says she believes in holding recess outside when at all possible, barring bad weather. Even so, safety threats in the surrounding Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood forced her to cancel recess about four times during the recent school year. And though Thompson was able to use discretionary money to hire a part-time parent worker to supervise children, she says budget cuts might make it impossible to hire someone again this coming year.
Lack of outdoor space has forced a number of schools to restrict recess to the classroom and hallways.
Too many schools have no playground equipment.
Catalyst reports that one school used their recess time to have students attend an anti-bullying program, although one has to wonder with the lack of a few minutes of unstructured time, when exactly would they experience bullying?
While next school year has been threatened by Rahm with severe budget cuts, the supposed lack of funds hasn’t prevented CPS to turn to the market place for recess supervision.
CPS has turned to outside vendors to handle recess at some schools. In summer 2012, CPS approved a $36 million contract for out-of-school activities and “recess facilitation services.” Much of the money is going to after-school programs, but as of a June 2013 update to the contract, 11 organizations are listed as providing recess services to schools.
One of the programs, Play With Potential, plans to expand into 14 schools next year.
Another group, PlayWorks, was in about a half-dozen schools, at a cost of about $72,000 per school to pay for personnel who also manage after-school activities and provide classroom lessons on social-emotional skills. Schools paid one-third of the cost, about $24,000, out of their own discretionary money. (A study found that the program decreased bullying, improved students’ feelings of safety, increased the amount of exercise students got during recess, and gave teachers more time for instruction.)
Adam Parrott-Sheffer, principal of Peterson Elementary in North Park, says that his school has used Playworks for recess for two years.
Peterson, which lost two-thirds of its budget for the coming year, has nevertheless decided to try and keep Playworks.
Fred Klonsky 
Love recess. However, if it were longer and properly supervised, adults could take children to nearby parks to play. For example, level 1 school, Lowell elementary which has terrible outdoor space, blocks off the street in front of the school so children can play at recess. Sprawling Humboldt Park with four playlots and acres of open space is literally two blocks away.
Oakland is not unlike Chicago in terms of schools, neighborhoods, etc. Playworks is a non-profit, and I’ve seen it make a difference– in the kids, and in the teachers, because when things get taken care of during recess, when kids are feeling safe and arguments are settled with something more than “I don’t want to hear it, detention” from an overworked admin, there are fewer interruptions in class time. Much of the cost is from the after-school portion… another thing we in this society don’t have enough of when parents are working hard and long hours. Playworks is not there to supervise recess but to engage with students during recess, to work on inclusion and bullying, etc. And they bring something else to their schools– equipment. Balls, jump ropes, etc. that were cut out of budgets long ago. They don’t belong to a kid or a classroom, and we aren’t talking 1 or 2 for a school. I think we could do more to support recess, and play, and the social skills and social wellbeing of our students (as well as their physical health) and I think Playworks contributes positively to that. If there’s no recess minutes in the schedule, no yard duties, it’s not safe to be outside, that is a much bigger issue. And I don’t know about any of the other orgs, I’ve only seen Playworks in action and have appreciated the climate and cooperation between Playworks staff and teachers and student benefits in the schools in the bay.
While I can understand the appeal, I think the outsourcing of recess is wrong on several levels.
Chicago schools budgets have been cut. In some cases cut by millions of dollars per school. Yet these outside outsourced programs remain in place instead of keeping teachers and staff.
The employees of these companies (non-profits – but somebody is making money) are not part of the union and do not make union wages, nor governed by union work rules and protections.
The scope and and mission of play time should be a part of the school mission and philosophy, determined by staff and parents – not determined by an outsourced management firm.
When we had faculty and staff meetings, we always had unstructured time as an issue we discussed and made decisions about. If there were problems with bullying or teasing, we addressed it both at recess and during class.
If we outsource this part of the day, what other part of the school day should we outsource?
And $70,000 is now a union teacher they don’t have.