Barrington legislator's school recess bill signed into law

Sen. Cynthia Coyne's bill ensures at least 20 minutes of free play recess for children

Posted 7/28/16

Gov. Gina Raimondo recently signed into law a bill that requires elementary schools to have at least 20 minutes of free play recess during the school day for children in kindergarten through …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Barrington legislator's school recess bill signed into law

Sen. Cynthia Coyne's bill ensures at least 20 minutes of free play recess for children

Posted

Gov. Gina Raimondo recently signed into law a bill that requires elementary schools to have at least 20 minutes of free play recess during the school day for children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Kathleen A. Fogarty (D-Dist. 35, South Kingstown) and Sen. Cynthia A. Coyne (D-Dist. 32, Barrington, Bristol, East Providence)

The law (2016-H 7644Aaa, 2016-S 2669Aaa) defines free play as being in an unstructured environment supervised by appropriate school personnel and discourages schools from taking away recess for academic or punitive reasons. The law applies to pupils in kindergarten through sixth grade.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a growing trend toward reallocating time in school to accentuate the more academic subjects has put recess at risk. The organization has stated that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child’s development.

According to the legislation, free play recess may be considered instructional time for those schools that would be required to extend the current school day in order to meet this requirement. 

In addition, it requires teachers to make a good faith effort to not withhold recess for punitive reasons. Although recess and physical education both promote activity and a healthy lifestyle, it is only supervised but unstructured recess that offers children the opportunity to actually play creatively, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.