From left in foreground, Schwegler Elementary School third-graders Nadia Esperance and Sa'Rieyah Branch move along to an exercise video during an indoor recess Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. Temperatures were too cold for the class to go outside so the children participated in playing games and other activities. A report delivered to the Lawrence school board at its last meeting indicated that some Lawrence students only get 15 minutes of recess in the seven-hour school day when Kansas State Department of Education policy allows for 30 minutes per day.

Across elementary playgrounds in the Lawrence school district, all is not equal. Just ask fourth-graders at Sunset Hill Elementary.

Fourth-graders at Sunset get 15 minutes of recess per day while fourth-graders at most other Lawrence public schools get 30 minutes per day.

Such discrepancies exist for fourth-graders at two other Lawrence elementary schools and for fifth-graders at eight of the district’s 14 elementary schools.

School district leaders are aware that some students are getting half as much playtime per day as their peers, and they say it is a concern. But it is unclear whether the district will be able to make changes to level the playing field, so to speak.

“It’s tough because I do think different schools have different strategies for how they spend their time,” said Vanessa Sanburn, president of the Lawrence school board.

Board’s recess goal

Board members are working on the issue, though. For this school year, one of the board’s goals to enhance student wellness is to “investigate increases in time for physical movement with emphasis on recess.” The board set out to see how it could increase the 30 minutes built into the elementary schedule, but found some students weren’t even getting that.

Part of the board’s concern over recess time is that recent research has found that unstructured playtime is important not only for exercise and social interaction, but also as a mental break needed to help students learn. Sanburn said part of the issue is looking into why teachers are opting to give their students less recess.

“I’d want to know more about why some teachers are utilizing that time in instructional ways and how that works for them and their justification for it before saying that they absolutely can’t have that time anymore,” she said.

The district report, which was delivered to the board at its last meeting, indicated that some Lawrence students only get 15 minutes of recess in the seven-hour school day. The Kansas State Department of Education policy allows for 30 minutes of time per day — half in the morning and the rest in the afternoon — to count toward the total instructional time required.

Balancing recess and instruction

The report indicates that for Lawrence students in kindergarten through second grade, schedules are set evenly. Those students get the two 15-minute recess breaks per day provided by KSDE policy. But for students in third through fifth grade, some schools give those grades one 15-minute recess break while other schools give them two.

Sanburn — whose daughter attends one of the schools that give less — acknowledged the transition to one 15-minute recess was tough for her own daughter, but also recognized the pressure on schools and teachers to cover a lot of material.

“We have a lot to balance,” Sanburn said. “There are a whole lot of requirements that are put on public schools in terms of curriculum that needs to be covered and standards that need to be met.”

Though, considering the research, Sanburn said it is not necessarily a choice between recess and instruction.

“I do think there’s a lot of research that would suggest a lot of those (curriculum) goals become easier to meet when kids have lots of good, unstructured activity time, because their brains are more receptive,” Sanburn said.

Increasing recess beyond 30 minutes per day is a complicated process, but was part of the original intent of the board’s goal. Because only 30 minutes of recess is allowed to count toward instructional time, increasing recess time would likely mean increasing the length of the school day or adding a few days to the school year. Sanburn said any additions would require an increase in teacher pay, which makes such a change unlikely.

“Asking people to work more and not give them more compensation really isn’t something people would agree to, which makes complete sense to me,” she said. “I think given the financial situation that we’re in, I don’t think we’re going to.”

Physical movement

Instead, the emphasis of the board’s goal has shifted toward increasing physical movement during class time. A district health official said that teachers have been taught to use physical activities that can be incorporated into their lessons. For example, doing jumping jacks and counting them in multiples to learn multiplication tables.

“It allows the students to get back on task and engaged in their instruction,” said Denise Johnson, the district’s curriculum coordinator for health and wellness. “Sometimes it takes just three or four minutes to do an activity and we’re back ready to go.”

Johnson was an elementary teacher prior to her current position, and even with physical movement in the classroom, she said the fact that some students are getting less recess than others is a concern.

“We would want equity; that is exactly what we’re working towards,” she said.

Differences across schools

Johnson is the district administrator responsible for the wellness goal, and she collected the data for the report. She said the report is based off grade-level schedules provided by administrators at each of the elementary schools in the district. Administrators and teachers create the schedule for each grade, which includes setting the recess time.

The report noted average recess time for fourth-graders in the district is 25.7 minutes and 21.4 minutes for fifth grade, and Johnson later confirmed that those figures are below 30 minutes because some schools were only giving students 15 minutes of recess per day.

According to further information provided to the Journal-World by district spokeswoman Julie Boyle, all 14 of the district’s elementary schools give students in kindergarten through second grade 30 minutes of recess per day, but recess time is not uniform across grade levels for students in third through fifth grade.

In third grade, 13 schools give students 30 minutes, except for Sunset Hill. In fourth grade, three schools — Sunset Hill, Quail Run and Pinckney — give 15 minutes while all others give 30. In fifth grade, eight schools — Sunset Hill, Quail Run, Pinckney, Hillcrest, Broken Arrow, Kennedy, Sunflower and Woodlawn — give 15 minutes while all others give 30.

But just because a recess is scheduled doesn’t ensure all students head outside to play. Without a recess policy, there is also no rule that says teachers can’t take away a student’s recess as punishment. The information collected by the district did not measure if recess was taken away as punishment.

While there is not a policy, Johnson said the district practice is not to take away recess, and schools have put positive reinforcement methods — such as awarding tickets for good behavior that students can spend at a school store — in place to give teachers an alternative.

“I think it is something we talk about with our buildings, and just being a responsible teacher you’ve got to figure out what the issues are, talking to parents and trying to figure out what another consequence could be in order to deter that behavior,” Johnson said.

Creating a policy

Despite the 30 minutes of recess built into elementary schedules, 63 percent of Kansas elementary students have 20 minutes or less for recess, according to a recent survey by the Kansas State Board of Education. The survey also found 41 percent of schools have policies prohibiting recess from being withheld as a punishment.

Sanburn said consideration of a district recess policy is an option, especially because ensuring every elementary student gets 30 minutes wouldn’t require an adjustment to the state policy or the district’s teacher pay.

“As a board member, I am interested in continuing to look at that,” she said. “That being an area that we have an ability to make an impact without having to petition for changes seems like a really good opportunity.”

When providing the information indicating which schools were providing less recess than others, Boyle said via email that the district will look at making sure recess times are equal for students in the same grade.

“As part of the board’s goal this year ‘to investigate increases in time for physical movement with emphasis on recess,’ the district will be working toward making elementary recess uniform across grade levels,” she said.