Alexandria Students Getting Less Recess

[MountainLaurel]

"Rrrrrrrrrrring!!!!!!!"

Ah, the recess bell. Upon hearing it, children leap out of their seats and flood into the schoolyard for impromptu games of tag, dodge ball and patty-cake or for just plain running around. For generations, the ritual has repeated itself two and even three times a day.

At least that is Deb Riley's memory of recess. But Riley, the mother of a student at Alexandria's Barrett Elementary School, said that when her daughter, Sarah, started kindergarten last year, she was shocked to discover what had happened to recess.

"I couldn't believe it," Riley said. "They had 15 minutes of recess -- all day." She said the other parents she talked to were similarly surprised, especially in light of recent news reports about the problem of increasing child obesity in the United States.

After this, it gets even better -- as a first grader, this girl's 15-minutes of recess are at the end of the day -- 5 hours without time to get up and move around.

And this in one of the "best" school systems in the country -- such a disregard for the way children function as human beings. Homeschooling is looking better and better.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24851-2004Dec1.html