Pittsford school district says playground games policy misunderstood

Children at Pittsford's Jefferson Road Elementary School who come up with a fun new game for the playground will need to do a few things before recruiting their classmates to play along.

First, they should write out the name of the game, the rules of play and the mechanism for rotating other children into play if it's in progress.

Their parents can then submit that form to the chairwoman of the school PTSA Parents on the Playground committee. The committee will review the game to ensure that it is "inclusive, age-appropriate, equipment-friendly and insurable."

If it is, it will be added to the school's list of approved games, accessible in PDF format online.

After that - have fun, kids!

"I think they're out of their minds," said Lynn Gatto, a 33-year elementary school teacher and director of the elementary education program at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education.

The district said the policy was a "misunderstanding."

The policy seems to have been in place for at least one year at the school, but it gained public attention Thursday after a letter to parents from committee chairwoman Rachel Hutchins was posted on Facebook by radio commentator Bob Lonsberry.

Parents ought to submit their games soon for the start of school, Hutchins suggested, because at the moment only two have been approved: Freeze Tag and Stuck in the Mud.

Others, she wrote, "may not be allowed on the playground."

"Our goal is not to restrict what games can be played," she wrote. "Instead, we are resolving the conflicts of the past by making game rules clear to everyone. By having the rules and joining guidelines available to playground monitors, they can help children play together without having to stop the games from going on."

Late Thursday, the district issued a statement from school principal Shawn Clark.

“We always have our students’ best interest at heart and, as always, students are able to play games and participate in activities of their choice during recess," Clark said.  

He continued, "The goal of submitting game ideas is to give our students a voice and platform to share their creativity and provide a common understanding of the rules for each/new  game. ...It allows us to take a great idea and share it with all of our students.  If students decide that they want to create a different game, it is not only fine, it is encouraged.

"We regret that the specific language of the parent letter was interpreted as restricting play; this was not our intent.”

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Pittsford's muscular parent infrastructure is one of the reasons for its reputation as the highest-achieving, best-resourced district in the region.

Jefferson Road, a K-5 school with 388 students, has 45 listed titles on its PTSA page, including three co-chairs, two art ambassadors, two responsible for the 'birthday board' and one dedicated to roller-skating parties. There are also several dozen district-level PTSA positions, not to mention the other schools in the district.

At least one other Pittsford elementary school, Mendon Center, has a Parents on the Playground committee, where parents "can get involved to help during recess." That website, though, does not specify whether there is an sanctioned list of games.

There is an impressive body of research showing the benefits of unstructured play for young children.

A 2015 research brief by the University of Rochester Medical Center's Division of Neurodevelopmental and Behavioral Pediatrics concluded: "Although there has been a push for increasing structure and adult-directed activities during playtimes, children benefit from unstructured recess where they may engage in self-directed social activity."

The academic American Journal of Play, published by the Strong Museum of Play, dedicated a special issue to the topic in 2011. The lead article argued for a correlation between the decline of unstructured outdoor play for children and an increase in "anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness and narcissism" among young adults.

In a 2013 policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics noted the benefits of structured play at recess, including the opportunity to coach children on interpersonal skills.

It cautioned, though: "parents and school officials should be cognizant ... that in designing a structured recess, they will sacrifice the notion of recess as an unstructured but supervised break that belongs to the child."

If recess is structured, the statement continued, adults should receive appropriate training in facilitating play and relationships. It was not clear what sort of volunteer training is in place at Jefferson Road.

Lindsay Cray is founder of Earthworks Institute, a local organization dedicated to allowing children to experience nature with as little restriction as possible. She would not comment on the Pittsford policy in particular without knowing the details behind its adoption, but generally cautioned against "the epidemic of helicopter parenting."

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"If a little girl's face got smashed in the mud or some kid had to get stitches, that's one thing, and certainly there's a need for closer supervision," she said. "But within reasonable guidelines of safety, children need the freedom to create their own world and use their own imagination.

"If you don't allow them to fall and get hurt here or there, or get a little muddy, or get their feelings hurt a little, they're not going to learn."

Gatto said she used to learn a great deal about her students by watching them on the playground — how they played together and interacted with one another, and the sorts of things they came up with.

"Children have few enough opportunities as it is to engage in unstructured interaction with their classmates throughout the school day," she said. "We do not need adults intervening in every moment of children's lives.

"(Pittsford) has beautiful playground equipment; just let the children play."

JMURPHY7@Gannett.com