Ours is open to students before and after school. Before school there are monitors. After school there is not. Our school is in the middle of a neighborhood. There is a sign posted that states the playground is open from dawn to dusk. This is due to the taxpayers' issue also.
The kids at our school do not use the playground before school, they gather in the gym for breakfast and movie till the teachers come to get their classes and walk their class to their classroom. After school, the district states that the playgrounds must be kept open because of of some sort of taxpayer issue. We faced this problem a couple of years ago when we wanted to put up a fence to keep some one who lived across the streets garbage off the school playground. Everytime there was any kind of wind or animal, the garbage would always end up all over the playground. We also had issues of vandalism and empty alcohol bottles everywhere and also a knife gound on the playground. We were told it had to be kept available to taxpayers for use... :confused:
To the best of my knowledge there is no district policy. It's up to the individual school. One of my PTO board members sent me this link today to an article on yahoo on schools banning tag so kids don't have an accident at recess.
What is the Districts Campus policy (i.e. At our former school (moved) the school had a Beyond the Bell Program- so the campus was an 'Open Campus' which allowed children to stay after school if not participating in the program but if an injury or a scape occured it was the Parents responsibiltity- even if they were at work and the child was waiting to be picked up
<font size=""1""><font color="#"black"">Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. </font></font><br /><br><font color="#"gray"">~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus</font><br /><br><font color="#"blue""><font size=""1"">The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is...
I appreciate the replies so far. As I read them I realized that I was not complete in my original description of the issue....
One of the new sets of playground equipment replaced an older set on the upper-grade side of the school. The other was an addition to the school and went in the middle of a section of grass that the kids used to run on and play tag, chase, etc. In addition to not being able to play on the equipment, they are not allowed to run on the field around it before or after school.
The first aid person is on campus before and after so that is not the issue. After school, or even just before school gets out, younger siblings with their own parents are not allowed to even use the swings. I think it boils down to supervision and god forbid a child gets a scrape.
Our district does not allow use of playgroud equipment immediately before or after shcool, for various reasons. Most of which involve no one being able to coordinate supervision if the whole school showed up. To be honest, all of our staff have before and after school duties so this is a real issue. I believe they are truely worried about the safety of the kids. If this is something new, I would ask why it had been ok so far and if, like our district, it's been a rule since you were a child, then I would try to focus on helping with the activites they are trying to get kids to do before and after school. We have tutoring, morning reading, breakfast, afterschool programs, etc.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
