Forced Fun? More Schools Hiring 'Recess Coaches'

Schools nationwide are overhauling recess programs and hiring coaches to supervise playtime in an effort to address issues with bullying, behavior problems and childhood obesity, The New York Times reports.

Playworks, a California-based nonprofit organization that was awarded an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has placed coaches in 170 schools in low-income areas of nine cities, including Boston, Washington and Los Angeles, The Times reports. Schools pay Playworks $23,500 a year to run a recess program.

In January, Brandi Parker was hired by Playworks to be a recess coach at Broadway Elementary School in Newark, N.J. Since then, disciplinary referrals at recess have dropped by three-quarters, and injuries have been reduced.

"Before, I was seeing nosebleeds, busted lips, and students being a danger to themselves and others," Broadway principal Alejandro Echevarria tells The Times. "Now, Coach Brandi does miracles with 20 cones and three handballs."

Broadway funded the program with a grant from Covanta Energy, which owns a waste-to-energy plant in Newark.

"We're trying to get them to exert energy, to get it all out," Parker says. "They can be as loud as they want. I never tell them to be quiet unless I'm telling them something."

Also, at another Playworks school, University Heights Charter School in Newark, students have learned to settle disagreements, The Times reports.

Adeola Whitney, executive director for Playworks in the Newark area, says recess coaches use a playbook with hundreds of games and allow students to give input about what they do.

"It's not rigid in any way, and it certainly allows for their creativity," Whitney says. "In some cases, we're teaching children how to play if they can't go to the park because it's drug-infested, or their parents can't afford to send them to activities."

However, critics say these types of structured recess programs can be a detriment to students.

Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was an author of a study on the benefits of recess published last year in the journal Pediatrics, says structured recess doesn't allow kids to unwind, The Times reports. "You still have to pay attention," she says. "You still have to follow rules. You don't have that time for your brain to relax."

In Wyckoff, N.J., hundreds of people signed a petition against the "midday fitness" program the school district replaced recess with in 2007, The Times reports. Now, recess has been restored in the middle school and on alternating days in elementary schools.

"I just can't imagine going through the entire day without a break, whether you're an adult or a child," Maria Costa, a Wyckoff mother of three who says her daughter came home feeling stressed after rushing through lunch to run laps, tells The Times.

What do the kids think?

Jose Salcedo, a fourth grader who volunteers as a junior coach, tells The Times that he and his friends sometimes missed the old recess, because "nobody would tell us what to do."

Related: Rethinking Recess