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In 2011, two years after Latino parents in Chicago began working to raise awareness of the need for recess in schools, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) finally announced they would be working to reincorporate recess back into the school day.
According to a blog post from the Healthy Schools Campaign a group of parents from the Parents United For Healthy Schools organization gathered over 4,000 signatures as part of a petition in support of recess. This helped ultimately get the attention of the district’s Office of Student Health and Wellness (OSHW), who’s mission is to oversee the well being of students and the implementation of health promoting policies for the district.
Research shows that schools with mostly Latino students are less likely to offer students at least 20 minutes of daily recess, but parents can work to help change this.
Kids need at least 60 minutes of daily physical activity and recess is one way to help students get a complete day’s worth of physical activity. Additionally, kids also need time for physical education (PE) and brain breaks.
Watch Salud America!‘s Salud Hero story on how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) went about creating a physical activity and PE policy to increase minutes of time spent participating in physical activity.
Read more on recess in Chicago Public schools here.
By The Numbers
84
percent
of Latino parents support public funding for afterschool programs
