About Us
Fair Play for Recess is an organization advocating the importance of playtime in the school day. In recent years a widespread trend has seen the amount of time devoted to recess shrink to nothing or almost nothing in many schools. We believe that time to play and to socialize is a vital part of childhood. We feel this way for developmental reasons, because free play permits children to flourish as people, because breaks during the day allow children to concentrate more effectively during class time, as well as out of simple fairness. Children need time that belongs just to them.
Our Mission
The Fayetteville Public School District recently added Strategic Goal #8, “Create and promote participation in a variety of activities that develop a full range of life skills,” to its list of goals for our schools. At the elementary and middle school level, an obvious way to help achieve this goal is through recess. We encourage the School Board to affirm these students’ right to recess. Next, we want to work with the district to increase the amount of recess time that children in our area are provided during the school day. In particular, we will focus on the Fayetteville School District, but are also interested in helping parents and educators in other districts work toward the same goal for their children.
Progress So Far
Arkansas House Representative Lindsley Smith (Fayetteville) introduced HR 1023 to encourage school districts to have two recess periods per day. Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Judy New, met with parents as part of school board member Tim Kring’s Zone 3 meeting to discuss recess time. As a result, she has worked to increase daily recess time from 15 to 20 minutes, and to include 30 minutes of extra recess time during the week. But, we need to make this a district wide standing policy. We are currently talking with school board members to get them to do just that.
How You Can Help
Please join our e-mail list so that we can let you know about upcoming events and write to your school board members to let them know you are concerned about the decrease in recess time for our children. Links to the Fayetteville School Board members e-mail addresses are given to the left. Speak to your fellow parents about these issues, and let them know about the organization. Talk to State Legislators about the need for recess in the school day. SIGN OUR PETITION.
Please Join our Organization
Fair Play for Recess
Daniel Kennefick
(479) 439-0199
Upcoming Events
FPS Roundtable - Sept. 9th
6pm, Woodland Jr. High
6pm, Woodland Jr. High
School Board Election: 9/16
Candidate Websites:
Candidate Websites:
Fair Play in the News
Useful Links
The Fayetteville School Board
State Legislators
