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Upon completion of my graduate degree in counseling, it is my desire to become a school counselor in an elementary setting. I plan to gain the experience necessary in multiple counseling settings so that I can eventually teach as a college instructor. I am from a small town, so I know first hand the power of distance learning and hope to have a direct impact in online education.

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Interview with District Counseling Coordinator, Kim Motley

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Interview with District Counseling Coordinator, Kim Motley

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Throughout my discussion with Mrs. Motley, I learned valuable information about the impact that ethical and legal requirements have on daily decisions made by elementary and high school counselors. Elementary counselors heavily focus on guidance curriculum and must comply with the Texas Model of Comprehensive School Counseling programs as well as the district local and legal policies and regulations. Secondary counselors must also follow these guidelines, but they have a major responsibility to ensure all students are working toward completion of graduation requirements as set forth by Chapter 74. Not only must our counselors focus on guidance lessons and academic requirements, but student safety has risen to a top priority in light of recent ethical cases involving school shootings and bullying. In order to ensure student safeguards are in place at the district level, Mrs. Motley specifically mentioned making alterations to local policies to ensure that students services received by outside agencies are limited during school hours on district property. She stated that in doing this the district counseling department is able to maintain control over the counseling messages and therapeutic remedies endorsed by Victoria ISD. Another example of maintaining student safety on campus is ensuring that communication and documentation is kept current, especially when there are legal issues in place for a student. Documenting any changes filed in court hearings, CPS investigations, or other legal circumstances is paramount in order to follow the proper protocol regarding a child's safety while in school. The district complies with both state and local requirements of school counselors by offering continuing education and encouraging attendance at state level conferences in order to review and alter practices so that they are operating under the most current legal and ethical standards.

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While a school's primary goal is to educate students, another priority is providing a safe environment. It's a responsibility enforced in federal, state and local laws, but ultimately, students can - and do - get hurt. And when they do, many blame the school or district.

Getting scraped up during recess, for instance, isn't new. Neither is getting made fun of by a classmate. Some medical experts call falls and broken bones " inevitable ," and some scholars cite teasing as an " important preparation for life ." But more severe issues, including sexual harassment, cyberbullying and school shootings are increasingly penetrating classrooms, spurring legal disputes over who's responsible.

"School safety is moving from the schoolhouse to the court of public opinion and the law," said school safety consultant Kenneth Trump. "But every case is unique - the legal issues vary, the allegations vary, and that's what makes it hard to pin it down to a handful of specific issues and put it in this neat little box."

Hundreds of lawsuits point the finger at schools or districts when students get injuried. Among the most recent was a suit against Broward County Public Schools and the county sheriff's office - both of which a federal judge said didn't have a legal duty to protect students - after the Parkland, Florida, shooting. These cases span different issues and reached varying verdicts, but they involve the same question: To what degree are these entities liable for students' safety?

Below, we've broken down a list of cases involving a school or district's role in student safety. Here's what happened and what they mean in the debate:

M.S.D. of Martinsville v. Rebecca Jackson

What happened: In March 2011, two students at West Martinsville Middle School in Indiana were injured in a shooting: One, who was shot twice in the stomach, was targeted by the shooter - a former student known to threaten and harass his peers -

Though the shooter threatened the victim several times - and threats were reported to teachers before the shooting - teachers didn't tell the administration, court documents say. Additionally, in the suit, the victim's mother said the district didn't protect her son because certain school entrances were left unlocked and monitors weren't properly warned about the shooter being a threat, among other alleged safety breaches.

While the district argued the suit should be dismissed because it couldn't have reasonably prevented the shooting, an appeals court disagreed.

What this means: This ruling shows schools or districts can be found liable if evidence proves the event could have reasonably been prevented, either because officials had reason to believe it would take place or if their response protocol wasn't sufficiently implemented.

Scarlett Lewis, et al. v. Newtown Board of Education and Town of Newtown

What happened: In one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

In her decision, the judge said, "...Faculty and staff had to make split-second decisions ... and subjecting their decisions to scrutiny, aided by hindsight, would no less serve the public interest than subjecting a police officer's discretionary decisions to second guessing."

She added, "Emergencies, by their very nature, are sudden and often rapidly evolving events, and a response can never be 100% scripted and directed."

According to this ruling, school officials can have similar protections to police officers. Even if a school has a safety protocol, it's hard to force people to have scripted emergency responses without taking split-second judgment into account. And if someone gets hurt, it's not necessarily something for which a school or district is liable.

Sexual misconduct

Mitchell v. Cedar Rapids Community School District

One day, the 9th-grader got her mother's permission to go to a friend's house after school, but she skipped last period. The 12th-grader raped her that afternoon. While the school day had ended when the rape happened, the girl's mom didn't know her daughter missed last period, and there were no special requirements for handling absences in her Individualized Education Program (IEP). Her mother sued the district for negligence, failing to monitor her daughter and notify her in a timely manner.

The district argued that because the rape didn't happen during school hours or on school grounds, it wasn't legally liable. But the Iowa Supreme Court ruled it could have been prevented.

What this means: This ruling doesn't imply a district or school is legally obligated to protect students outside of school hours or off school grounds in non-school activities. However, it does show that in certain cases, if evidence shows it either could have predicted or prevented such an incident from happening, they could be liable.

Shawnee Mathis, et al. v. Wayne County Board of Education, et al.

After the coach first heard about the incident, he allegedly didn't report it. One boy's parent later told the school, and the 8th-graders who were responsible were suspended for 10 days. The other boy's parent went to the school with concerns about what happened, but the suit alleges the principal didn't seem too troubled by it.

The boys continued to face harassment and were later pulled out of school. The school took some steps to prevent locker room misconduct, but in a disciplinary hearing, a committee of school officials chose not to suspend the 8th-graders for the rest of the basketball season, and the Wayne County Board of Education moved up their reinstatement date.

tudents and families who file suit often face many hurdles in proving a school or district is liable. According to the What this means: S Associated Press, districts in some states - including Virginia and Georgia - have "absolute immunity" from state-level lawsuits, while others, such as Florida, cap amounts schools must pay in damages. It's possible for a school to be held accountable, but it can be a high bar to hit.

Bullying/harassment

Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools

When the victim and her parents filed a harassment complaint with the school, the site's creator was suspended for five days for the so-called "hate website," which violated school bullying, harassment and intimidation policies. She sued, claiming her First Amendment rights were violated, because her site was private and was created outside of school.

"foreseeable " that the website would "create a substantial disruption in the school, " therefore allowing the school to control the student's speech.

Wyke v. Polk County School Board

What happened: The mother of Shawn Wyke, a 13-year-old who died by suicide, sued her son's district in Polk County, Florida, alleging administrators knew he tried to commit suicide twice at school before his death. When the dean of students found out about Wyke's first attempt, he called the student into his office and read Bible verses, according to court documents. He thought they made Wyke feel better and that he did all he could that day.

Wyke's mother sued the school board, the vice principal and the principal, alleging there was inadequate intervention and prevention training for school employees that contributed to her son's wrongful death. A district court ruled the district could be found liable due to a failure to notify Wyke's parents about what happened, and their knowledge of his two attempts made the incident foreseeable.

What this means: Hundreds of students die by suicide each year, and many parents or guardians argue schools could have done more to prevent this. But in the past, courts often haven't deemed schools and districts liable for student suicides unless it was clear officials knew a student was suicidal and did nothing, or if they intentionally made things worse.

However, the sampling of cases to examine is relatively limited. Since this suit was filed, several schools and/or districts are facing legal action for their alleged liability in similar incidents. The outcomes of those cases will reveal a lot about where the line is drawn for schools' and districts' legal responsibilities.

Brewington v. Philadelphia School District

More than a year later, the boy's mother sued the elementary school and the Philadelphia School District, alleging the lack of padding on the gym walls was dangerous and constituted negligence. The school argued it was immune from the suit, but in a December 2018 ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected this claim.

The court said this incident qualified as an exception to the immunity provision, giving the boy's mom a right to sue. According to the "" if an agency doesn't put adequate safety features in place for normal or reasonable use of property, it can be sued. In this case, the court found, the lack of padding could constitute negligence.

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To what extent are districts, schools liable for students' safety?

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While a school's primary goal is to educate students, another priority is providing a safe environment. It's a responsibility enforced in federal, state and local laws, but ultimately, students can - and do - get hurt. And when they do, many blame the school or district.

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Dive Brief:

As educators look to strike a balance between rigorous academics and time for socializing and play, at least five states have mandatory recess laws at the elementary level, while seven others require elementary schools to have daily physical activity. Several other states, including Massachusetts and Arkansas, are also expected to consider recess laws this year, Edutopia reports.

Recess was long considered a staple element of elementary education, but when No Child Left Behind went into effect, it began to disappear under the more intense focus on testing and core subjects. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Edutopia notes, one-third of elementary schools had eliminated recess across all grades.

However, a growing body of research concerning the physical, cognitive, mental and social benefits of recess are convincing more lawmakers and educators of its necessity. Advocacy groups, such as the National PTA and the American Academy of Pediatrics have also voiced their support of recess requirements for kids as necessary in promoting physical and social-emotional activities.

Dive Insight:

In recent years, more state legislatures have come to realize what elementary school teachers and parents have long enforced through built-in recess periods - children need time to play. Most school hours are spent in learning activities that require students to be relatively still and quiet, and at some point, it becomes harder for them to concentrate and focus without any breaks. Research has shown that if kids have to wait longer for a break, they become less attentive and more antsy, but when given a break for play, their attention spans bounced back once they returned to the classroom.

In the wake of the death of recess at some schools - a byproduct of the No Child Left Behind regulations - more research has highlighted the benefits of recess as well as physical education. Children need physical activity to remain fit and healthy, but they also need unstructured play time to regulate emotion, strengthen memory, promote a normal sleep schedule and digest what they've learned in the classroom. Under Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) regulations, physical activity is considered part of a well-rounded education.

States and school districts play a role in meeting children's physical need for exercise. According to Active Living Research, scheduling time for physical education during the school day study can "help more students meet national recommendations for physical activity."

Recess also helps students with social-emotional learning, as it is one of the few times during the day children can interact with one another freely. During group play, children learn how to collaborate, socialize and regulate their own emotions. Recess not only allows kids to relieve stress accumulated during hours of study, but it also leads to a better school climate, according to a report by Stanford University.

Another impact of recess is cognitive benefits for students, who learn better and are more focused when they return to the classroom. Experiments have shown that play can stimulate growth of the cerebral cortex, improve memory and trigger the secretion of BDNF, a substance necessary for the growth of brain cells. It also improves cognitive processing, which is most effective when there's a period of interruption after a period of concentration.

A 2013 statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics sums up the need for recess: Safe and well-supervised recess, it says, "offers cognitive, social, emotional, and physical benefits that may not be fully appreciated when a decision is made to diminish it." The statement also notes that "recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child's development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons."

While the benefits of recess are plentiful, some school administrators are still reluctant to make it a regular part of the school day or to increase its time frame, as this takes away from class time and can present liability risks, such as potential bullying or injuries that could occur. Seen Magazine notes a 2010 Gallup poll, which revealed that 89% of discipline-related problems took place during recess. And, as noted in a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this time of day is when schools have the biggest behavior management challenges. For recess to reach its full potential, children should have adequate supervision or the experience may do more harm than good.

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More states weighing mandatory recess, physical activity laws

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As educators look to strike a balance between rigorous academics and time for socializing and play, at least five states have mandatory recess laws at the elementary level, while seven others require elementary schools to have daily physical activity. Several other states, including Massachusetts and Arkansas, are also expected to consider recess laws this year, Edutopia reports.

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The White House on Monday endorsed adding new lending caps for graduate and parent borrowers and giving campus aid administrators the authority to require loan counseling for student borrowers, among a slate of priorities for reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

The wish list is the most comprehensive accounting so far of the Trump administration's higher ed agenda. And it suggests the Trump administration sees limiting student borrowing as a top issue.

The White House took a mostly hands-off approach in the last Congress as House Republicans pursued a controversial HEA rewrite that ultimately failed to get a floor vote. But with serious talks happening between Senate lawmakers and House Democrats signaling support for bipartisan legislation, the White House is weighing in on with key demands for the first update to the higher ed law since 2008.

"We need to modernize our higher education system to make it affordable, flexible and outcome oriented," said Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser to President Trump, in a call with reporters.

The Trump administration at the same time has had an executive order in the works that would tackle a broad array of postsecondary issues, including free speech, which was not addressed in the White House HEA proposal.

The set of proposals released Monday illustrates how the work of the White House, the Education Department and Congress has often overlapped on key issues -- with varying degrees of coordination.

The Trump administration, for example, wants Congress to eliminate an "archaic distinction" between regional accreditors, which oversee most public and nonprofit colleges, and national accreditors, which oversee mostly for-profit and online colleges. The Education Department has pursued the same agenda this year through a rule-making process while taking major criticism from traditional higher ed groups, who say it would create huge disruptions for the existing oversight system for colleges.

The list of higher ed proposals also reflects several previous congressional recommendations dealing with student loans.
Curbing Student Loan Debt
The White House argues that too many colleges don't provide the type of education that allows students to pay back their loans. It argued for a federal accountability system where institutions would share more of the risk for outcomes on student loans. But Trump administration officials deferred on the details, saying they wanted to work with Congress.

Senator Lamar Alexander, the GOP chairman of the Senate education committee, has argued for program-level accountability based on loan repayment rates as a top priority for reauthorizing the HEA.

The White House proposals also called for limiting loan debt directly by adding new caps on the Parent and Grad PLUS programs, which currently allow borrowers to take out unlimited amounts of debt. It argued that lending limits are necessary because research shows a correlation between tuition increases and the availability of student aid. But that idea, known as the Bennett hypothesis, has in fact been hotly contested by higher ed researchers. And the only examination of the Grad PLUS program's impact on pricing, by Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor at Seton Hall University, showed modest effects.

The proposed lending caps reflect a similar proposal in the PROSPER Act, a 2017 House Republican plan to overhaul the HEA. PROSPER called for annual limits of $28,500 for graduate students and $12,500 for parent borrowers. The Trump administration document offered no specific numbers.

Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, argued that capping graduate lending would disenfranchise low-income and minority students who need loans to pursue further postsecondary education beyond a bachelor's degree.

"The demand for professionals who have at least a master's degree at entry level continues to grow, and we need to ensure students today can pursue degrees that support the U.S. work force of tomorrow," she said in a statement.

The White House is also backing a long-standing demand from campus aid administrators for authority to limit lending and require loan counseling. Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said if policy makers want colleges to play a more active role in addressing student loan debt, those campus officials need more tools to curb borrowing.

"Many schools would welcome the opportunity to more directly intervene and require counseling when students borrow irresponsibly," Draeger said.
Streamlining Loan Repayment
The White House also backs consolidating several existing income-driven repayment plans, instead offering one plan that would cap payments at 12.5 percent of a borrower's discretionary income. It would also offer loan forgiveness to all undergraduate borrowers after 15 years of payments.

And it wants Congress to allow data sharing on tax information between the Department of Treasury and the Education Department to simplify applications for student aid and repayment of federal student loans. Alexander has offered a proposal in his HEA framework that would have a borrower's student loan payments automatically deducted from his or her paycheck.

"I share the administration's goals to make a college education worth it and to make it simpler to apply for federal student aid and pay back student loans," Alexander said in a statement. "It is helpful to have these suggestions as I work with Senator Patty Murray, the senior Democrat on the education committee, to develop bipartisan recommendations so that we can report legislation to the full Senate before summer."

But Murray said in a statement that the Trump administration had identified a symptom -- rising student debt -- while completely ignoring the root cause of growing college costs.

"In fact, this proposal would end up hurting students by reducing the amount of federal aid for students and taking billions out of the pockets of borrowers," she said. "Chairman Alexander and I have agreed to work toward a comprehensive reauthorization that makes college more affordable, so I look forward to working with him to find real and serious solutions that actually help students afford higher education."

The White House proposals also called for targeted federal financial aid for incarcerated students, signaling support for lifting a quarter-century ban on Pell Grants for those students.

And it backed Pell Grants for short-term programs that lead to a credential or certificate in a high-demand field as well as Federal Work-Study reforms that would put more emphasis on career-oriented employment for low-income students.

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White House issues priorities for Higher Education Act

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The White House on Monday endorsed adding new lending caps for graduate and parent borrowers and giving campus aid administrators the authority to require loan counseling for student borrowers, among a slate of priorities for reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. The wish list is the most comprehensive accounting so far of the Trump administration's higher ed agenda.

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When the National Anthem played at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville men's basketball game on Tuesday, at first it seemed like everyone in the stands, most dressed in the bright orange of the institution, rose.

But there was contingent, dressed in all black, that did not.

Those students, roughly 40 to 50, according to local media reports, remained seated in protest. This was a display against administrators' response to a social media posting of students in blackface that has circulated campus and inflamed race relations.

During the game, students chanted slogans: "Hey, hey, ho ho, racism has got to go" and "No justice, no peace, no racist UT." Most of them left during the second half of the game, holding their right fists in the air in protest, a similar gesture to athletes, both college and professional, who have knelt during the anthem as a demonstration against racism.

The blackface episode stung all the more because it unfolded following the revelation that prominent Virginia politicians, the state's governor and attorney general, both Democrats, wore blackface in college. (The governor, Ralph Northam, initially said he was pictured in his medical school yearbook in blackface, but he later walked back the admission.)

And the scandal with the Virginia officials has led other colleges to audit their yearbooks, sometimes unearthing the unscrupulous and prejudicial pasts of both university leaders and the institutions themselves -- so students engaging in blackface now seemed particularly egregious. Tennessee's governor, Bill Lee, for instance, was pictured in his college yearbook from Auburn University wearing a Confederate uniform.

Citing constitutional considerations, university officials have said that they are unlikely to expel anyone over blackface. Administrators said that the First Amendment prevents them from removing the students, but at least one, Ethan Feick, is no longer enrolled, the university said Wednesday. Federal privacy laws prohibit officials from sharing more, they said.

The incident raises a slew of issues for Knoxville, as it also comes amid accusations by President Trump that public universities do not protect free speech, particularly speech with a conservative bent. He vowed recently to sign an executive order that would deny federal research money to institutions that do not support free expression. Trump has also repeatedly called for everyone attending athletics events to stand for the National Anthem.

Administrators' responses at Knoxville seem counter to Trump's theory that public universities do not respect free speech. Despite the mounting pressure for them to act and kick the students out, they have not yet buckled to the demands, despite the expulsion of all the students seemingly being the option the public favors the most. The decision also leaves Knoxville officials in a tough position of wanting to support diversity -- and the minority students hurt by the situation who perceive that administrators are disregarding their concerns -- but not open themselves to a legal challenge.

In late February, a Knoxville student posted online an image from Snapchat. It was a picture of four students posing, two wearing black face masks (part of a skin-care routine) with a caption that read: "We for racial equality boys. Bout to get this free college now that I'm black let's gooooo #blacklivesmatter."

The post not only mocked the Black Lives Matter movement but also played into the harmful stereotype that black students are only admitted to college because of their race and not on their merits, said Julian Hayter, an associate professor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond.

Anger abounded as the photo went viral on Twitter (it's been retweeted more than 3,500 times). A student created a Change.org petition pushing for the removal of the students in the image and asking Knoxville to enact a zero-tolerance policy against racism and hate speech. It has since been signed by more than 5,100 people.

"Blackface in the name of free speech is racism," Shaun Harper, executive director of the University of Southern California's Race and Equity Center, said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed. "There is no other name for it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is an example of the free speech that Donald Trump wishes to protect. It is highly likely that he would [not] denounce this, which is shameful. College presidents and other leaders owe it to their black students and black employees to denounce and actively address this insidious form of racism."

Knoxville's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemned the incident.

"Despite ongoing efforts within our university to enhance opportunities consisting of culture competency for staff and students regarding diversity, there is clearly more work to be done and we are not on the right track -- we cannot, and will not, stand by to watch these situations continuously occur on our campus," a statement from the organization reads.

The university in a statement called the screen grab "repulsive" and "abhorrent" and organized a forum Monday to discuss race and the controversy with the campus.

At that meeting, Vince Carilli, vice chancellor for student life, told the crowd of about 200 people that the university would be "hard-pressed to expel a student for expressing their First Amendment rights," a statement that drew the ire of the attendees, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

Carilli noted that no decision has yet been made on whether to discipline the offending students. After Carilli's remarks at the forum, one student, George Johnson, told the News Sentinel that he was "heartbroken" and that he could no longer take pride in UT Knoxville.

"You failed if you believe that the First Amendment is the equivalent of protecting someone from blackfacing," Johnson said in an interview with the newspaper.

Tuesday was the protest at the basketball game, a home game against Mississippi State University. The protest was organized by the UT Diversity Matters Coalition, which was founded in 2016 after the Office of Diversity and Inclusion was potentially one of the targets of state legislation that would have cut funds for diversity in higher education.

Caitlin Lloyd, a junior at Knoxville and one of the student organizers, told Inside Higher Ed that the protest "was a necessity."

Knoxville's response was "reactionary," Lloyd wrote during an interview with a reporter on Facebook.

"Our campus admin continues to address racism through releasing statements of condemnation, yet they never actively create change around these issues," Lloyd wrote. "We are tired and we have had enough of just receiving emails. Our administration has to do better. It needs to."

A Knoxville spokeswoman directed a reporter to a statement from the Office of the Chancellor posted Wednesday.

According to the statement, the university will immediately start requiring ongoing cultural competency, inclusion and bias training for employees. A student training will begin with orientation in the summer and extend through the first week back during the academic year.

The Faculty Senate approved new general education requirements earlier this week, too, that will include classes on global citizenship. A new committee has been formed of professors, staffers and students that will study the university's policies.

Lloyd wrote that she believes the students in blackface should be expelled "or otherwise disciplined in a constructive manner." She said that she thinks that the students violated the conduct code, specifically a section about causing harm to other students. Some of her peers have skipped class because they mentally didn't feel they could attend, Lloyd wrote.

"We have all cried together, screamed together," Lloyd wrote. "This has directly harmed our well-being ... our welfare. This, hence, justifies our want to have these students expelled."

Hayter, the professor from Richmond, said that Knoxville can't continue to treat diversity as "a token issue."

Hayter called the university's handling of the incident "clumsy" and said that freedom of speech doesn't protect the students from consequences -- even by the university. Knoxville's conduct code does seem to forbid such actions, and punishing the students would send a strong message, Hayter said.

"I'm a proponent of college intellectual diversity and freedom of thought," Hayter said. "But ultimately, what we're talking about here is behavior and language that is chock-full of racial stereotypes that were intended to hurt. I think that has a profound influence then. If people want to hide behind the First Amendment, and unapologetically, they need to think long and hard [about the] kind of students they want on this campus."

When other students have engaged in racist behavior, they have left their institutions, sometimes of their own accord and sometimes not.

Two former students at the University of Oklahoma withdrew from their institution after a video surfaced of them using a racial slur and in blackface. Officials at Oklahoma said the students voluntarily left but never clarified whether administrators encouraged them to do so.

A University of Alabama student, however, was apparently expelled after a racist rant she recorded went viral online. Constitutional scholars Inside Higher Ed interviewed said the student would have a strong case for a lawsuit.

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UT Knoxville blackface incident calls into question administrator commitment to diversity

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As President Trump says colleges ignore free speech, University of Tennessee at Knoxville cites the First Amendment as a reason not to expel students for blackface. In protest of that decision, students engage in form of protest Trump repeatedly questions.

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I believe in the power of recess and children taking a break from the structured learning environment of a classroom. Research proves that physical education is important for our children, but the impact recess has on social-emotional learning takes the benefits one step further. Rather than a structured time of physical activity, recess offers free play and choice, which allows our students to find a personal outlet for their energy and emotions in order to recharge for the next portion of their day.

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American Academy of Pediatrics claims Recess is Crucial

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American Academy of Pediatrics claims Recess is Crucial

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Recess is at the heart of a vigorous debate over the role of schools in promoting the optimal development of the whole child. A growing trend toward reallocating time in school to accentuate the more academic subjects has put this important facet of a child's school day at risk.

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Brief Overview:
This article pinpoints the decline of recess after the passing of No Child Left Behind. Schools began to shift their focus away from social development and onto academic success. Further discussion in this article highlights the cognitive, social-emotional, and physical benefits of recess for children. Jarrett and Waite-Stupiansky differentiate between physical education courses and recess, using teacher ratings and research to describe how the benefits of recess are observed in the classroom.
APA Citation:
Jarrett, O. & Waite-Stupiansky, S. (2009). Recess-It's indispinsible, Young Children, 64(5), 66-69. Retrieved from https://easydb.angelo.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=508089007&site=eds-live

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In order for educators to continuously compete with technology and the pressure for instant gratification, they must continuously engage the minds of young students. One solution for keeping the attention of students throughout the school day is implementing recess multiple times. Murray and Ramstetter (2013) are in favor of having periodical breaks during the school day versus a single recess period. These breaks allow them time to rest, move, socialize, or any activity of their choice. There lies the power of recess over other structured physical activity periods, student choice.

State law requires that students be engaged in physical activity during school, but this requirements does not always distinguish between recess and physical education (PE) courses. A child experiences different benefits in PE than they do during recess. Jarrett and Sandra (2009) state that recess and PE are not geared toward the same result for children, and the activity levels vary greatly. PE functions as a structured time of the school day, which does not promote the benefit of student choice. Murray and Ramstetter (2013) are also supporters of both PE and recess in schools because of the difference in dynamics of play in each of those activities. What is mandated in a PE course may not meet the needs of every child, so the ability for that child to recharge is negated without a separate recess time.

Due to the strains placed on teachers and students as a result of high-stakes testing, schools are focused on utilizing time during the day to focus on academics in hopes of filling achievement gaps and producing higher success rates. Research supports the need for recess for many reasons, including academic. It is imperative that teachers allow brain breaks in order for the child to continue processing the information they need to be successful. According to Murray and Ramstetter (2013), children are more attentive after a time of exploration and recess whether it is performed indoors or outdoors. Rather than looking at recess as time taken away from academics, educators must shift their lens and view this necessary cognitive rest period as an extension of their learning time or a time that will enrich their next lesson. Educators must also embrace their responsibility to the development of the whole child and realize that the absence of recess is depriving our children of the foundational skills they need to become successful in the future.

References
Jarrett, O. & Waite-Stupiansky, S. (2009). Recess-It's indispinsible, Young Children, 64(5), 66-69. Retrieved from https://easydb.angelo.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=508089007&site=eds-live
Murray, R. & Ramstetter, C. (2013) The crucial role of recess in school, American Academy of Pediatrics, 131(1), Retrieved from https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/183.full