Should recess be mandatory in Maryland schools? These parents say yes.

Recess is fun, but should it be mandatory?

Yes, says a growing group of Maryland parents who are putting their time and energy to support unstructured play time in the middle of a school day. Daily recess, they say, provides children with the benefits of better emotional health and improved classroom performance, with research to back it up.

“There’s a greater push for academics, and students are being asked to sit for longer periods. With that, we’re seeing more behavior challenges in the classroom,” said Abby Bishop, a speech-language pathologist and mother of two who co-leads a new advocacy group, Say YES to RECESS Maryland. “But the research is clear: Recess is essential to children’s health, behavior and learning,”

The group launched only late last month, making Maryland among the latest to join a growing movement that began in Tennessee and has spread to more than 20 states.

Organizing the effort in Maryland are Bishop and Carly Ross, an occupational therapist also with two children.

“I’ve seen firsthand how play builds the skills kids need in the classroom, from taking turns and working through frustration to focusing and problem-solving,” said Ross. “I know that children need this,” said Ross.

Ross and Bishop, who have worked in Baltimore-region public schools, took on the recess push as their young children were facing a change in schools. They knew about the research and the need in their professional lives, and now the issue was becoming personal.

In short order, the Maryland chapter was live, with a Change.org petition drive starting in the last week of September that has garnered nearly 2,200 signatures, and a Facebook page with more than 300 followers. They’ve reached out to a state lawmaker who is considering support of a mandatory recess bill for the Maryland General Assembly session which begins in January.

The goal: A state requirement for 60 minutes during the school day for unstructured play, ideally outdoors, at least for elementary school students and possibly extending to 8^th grade.

Bishop and Ross have begun executing an advocacy playbook laid out in part by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where the STRONG Research Team (an acronym for Striving to Reach Optimal Nutrition and Growth) compiled a “Toolkit A Toolkit to Support Advancing Recess in Schools Through State Laws” in December 2025.

Advisors on the Hopkins toolkit included The American Federation of Teachers, the School Superintendents Association, and the Maryland Advisory Council on Health and Education.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” said Bishop. “Researchers, educators and advocates have already laid the groundwork, and we’re ready to carry it forward here in Maryland.”

Say YES To RECESS notes that Maryland does not have a statewide policy on outdoor play; it’s left up to individual schools and districts. And, with the demands of instruction, push for better test scores, all kinds of needs – recess can get crowded out.

The national campaign has achieved its most prominent legislative and grassroots successes in Tennessee and Oklahoma, while expanding its organizing presence into roughly 20 to 30% of U.S. states.

In Tennessee, a state law advocated by the group increased mandatory recess time to 40 minutes daily. In other states, chapters have pushed through schedule changes and increased recess times in individual schools while building momentum for broader state-level mandates.

The American Academy of Pediatrics first issued a policy statement supporting recess in 2013 and updated it in May, expanding it to cover students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Recess is a “necessary break in the day for optimizing a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development,” the AAP says. “In essence, recess should be considered a child’s personal time, and it should not be withheld for academic or punitive reasons.”

The pediatrician associate cites three “core benefits” of recess:

• Social and emotional benefits: “Through give-and-take play, students master social integration. In this way, students collaboratively create an inclusive, positive school culture, extending from the playground to the learning environment”
• Physical Benefits: Recess helps children get the daily “moderate to vigorous physical activity” doctors recommend.
• Cognitive/Academic Benefits: Two areas of research support taking breaks during the school day to enhance academic learning. One examines the effect of “wakeful rest” as a critical first step for successful information storage. The other explores the positive effects of physical movement on the retention of newly acquired information.

Bishop and Ross acknowledge there will be pushback, and said they are already seeing some on social media, where comments say that free play time should be a home and parental responsibility, not an in-school mandate.

“We agree families play a huge role in giving kids time to play,” Bishop said. “But not every child goes home to a safe yard or a nearby park, and many kids have long bus rides that get them home just in time for dinner, homework and bed. School is the one place where we can make sure every child gets that time.”

There are already a lot of demands on student time. But Ross says there are ways to be more efficient with classes, reduce some transition time between activities and make room for recess.

“With some intentional and creative planning, this can fit,” Ross said.

Ross and Bishop also acknowledge the need to address equity concerns. In some schools, parents have the time and resources to volunteer as, say, recess monitors, but in other places, it would be tougher to find the space and resources.

“We don’t want recess to become one more thing that depends on a school’s ZIP code,” Ross said. “If it matters for every child, and the research shows it does, then schools with fewer resources need real support to make it happen.”