Recess

In a New England suburban town the elementary school had to eliminate the morning recess. Nicholas Thacher's article Eliminating Recess Hurts Kids, explains that the morning recess has be cut out so that in the morning students can be freshening up on their academic skills for the standardized tests.
My elementary school, not having to cut recess out, had to restructure our recesses. Our K-5 school, provides students with two recesses a day. Previously, one was in the afternoon and one was right after lunch. The problem that we were facing was some students would not eat lunch so they could get out on the playground sooner and have more time to play. What our school decided to do was to provide a ten minute recess before lunch and then students would come in to eat. While teachers have seen some positives from students coming to class right from lunch as opposed to recess, some parents have other views. Several parents were upset at the fact that the time students were able to be active and moving to release energy was being reduced.
In looking at how some of the parents at my school reacted to the restructure of recess, I couldn't imagine the uproar we would get if a recess was cut out.