What the School Board Decided About Recess

At Tuesday's meeting the school board voted five to two to add ten minutes of outdoor recess for kindergarten through second grade. The change starts after winter break. The ten minutes come out of the end of the day, not out of lunch, which was the version most parents at the meeting objected to.

Most of the two hours were not about the ten minutes. They were about coats. Teachers asked for a clear rule on when children go out in the cold, because right now it is decided classroom by classroom and the children have noticed.

The rule the board settled on is simple: if the temperature at eleven is above twenty-five degrees, everyone goes out, and a child without a coat borrows one from the lost-and-found bin, which, as one teacher pointed out, has never been empty.

The two members who voted no did not object to recess. They objected to cutting the end of the day, when the reading groups meet. The board agreed to look at the schedule again in March.