A big shift is coming to California schools this fall: recess as a right, not a privilege.
But even though the next school year is just a few months away, several major San Diego-area school districts still aren’t ready to discuss their plans to make sure kids are getting the recess time they’re guaranteed.
In the 2024-2025 school year, all schools will be required to provide 30 minutes of recess for elementary students every day. Teachers and administrators will also be banned from taking that time away as punishment.
That’s because of a new state law passed last year that’s meant to ensure students are getting time for unstructured and freewheeling activities. A growing number of researchers argue that time is crucial for young children to develop key social skills and an internal sense of agency.
State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), who authored the law, said his goal was to recognize that free play is equally as important as classroom time in some ways.
“It's not just for kids to kind of be kids,” Newman told KPBS earlier this year. “It's also for that sort of decompression — the restorative benefit that comes with not being in a structured environment.”
Newman’s office said the law would permit having recess inside on rainy days or during extreme heat, but said that kids should still be given free time indoors. Watching a movie, they said, might not meet the requirements of the law.
Last month, KPBS reached out to the five largest elementary school districts in San Diego County: San Diego Unified, Poway Unified, Vista Unified, Chula Vista Elementary and San Marcos Unified.
Three districts declined interview requests and did not answer detailed questions.
A spokesperson for San Diego Unified, the county’s largest school district, did not agree to speak on the record. In an email, Public Information Officer Mauren Magee wrote that the district’s “recess schedules comply w/ the legislation” but declined to elaborate further.
A spokesperson for San Marcos Unified said they would be “specifying recess differently” on their schedules in response to SB 291, but did not respond to additional questions. Representatives for Chula Vista Elementary did not respond by KPBS’ deadline.
Only Vista and Poway staff agreed to discuss their plans.
In Vista, district officials said they had been following the changes to state law closely and that their schools were already largely meeting the requirements.
“For us, I mean, it was easy,” said Christine Olmstead, assistant superintendent of Vista Unified School District. “We weren't too concerned.”
For example, Olmstead said the district already requires schools to give students a 40 minute break that includes 10 minutes for lunch and 30 minutes for recess. She also said the school board already has policies in place to stop teachers from giving detention during recess time.
Since SB 291 became law, Olmstead said district officials have been working closely with their principals to make sure that staff understand that some of these policies are now required by law.
“We felt validated that what we've been doing is actually what the state is now requiring,” she said.
A spokesperson for Poway Unified said the district had also been working with their principals and reviewing the bell schedule of each school to make sure that all elementary schools were meeting the new requirements.
“We updated our guidelines for elementary sites to use when building their school bell schedule to ensure they meet SB291,” said Christine Paik, a spokesperson for Poway Unified, over email.
In January, Newman acknowledged that the new recess law does not include any strong enforcement mechanisms or measures to collect data on how many schools are meeting its requirements.
“That money is really hard to find, especially in the educational realm these days,” he said.
Instead, Newman said, it places trust in educators to implement the changes it requires.
Olmstead said it’s also important to remember that parents can also play an important role in holding schools accountable.
If a parent sees recess being limited or taken away, she said they should speak with their child’s teacher or an administrator.
