We were right. Monday nights are just better with recess games, outdoor happy hours, and Playworks.
About 50 people came out to eat...
Playworks In the News
The Power of Play
Press Contact
Please direct media inquiries to:
Cindy Wilson
cwilson@playworks.org
510-768-7358
Eric Antebi
eantebi@fenton.com
415-901-0111
From The Field
Monday, 8/9. Five pm. That's four weeks away. And we know where you'll be.
You'll be leaving work, thinking to yourself: self, what I ...
The safe and healthy play Playworks brings to schools has been featured by news organizations across the country.
Please note that Playworks was formerly known as Sports4Kids. Media coverage prior to July, 2009 then will list the organization as Sports4Kids.
The Monthly
August 1, 2010
An Oakland program helps kids play better at recess and teaches life skills at the same time.
When Jill Vialet was growing up in Washington, D.C. in the ’70s, she attended a recreation center every day after school. With her parents working full-time for the federal government, Vialet spent her afternoons there playing peewee football and basketball. She vividly remembers Clarence, a big African-American man in his 20s, who always made sure she got to play.
“It was the ’70s and often I was the only little girl there,” says Vialet, now an Oakland resident. “What was so cool about him was he made it no big deal at all. If there was the slightest bit of guff, he dismissed it. He just created this environment where if we went to play another team and they’d say ‘You have a girl on your team!’ the boys on my team would just be like ‘Yeah, we do.’”
Vialet decided all kids need a Clarence to make sure they get in the game. Twenty years later, after many twists and turns, she founded Playworks—a national nonprofit that now works with 265 low-income public elementary schools—to make that happen. (Read the full article)
ABC News Nightline
May 10, 2010
Elementary School in Tough Arkansas Neighborhood Brings in 'Coach Coop' to Give Structure to Playtime
In the orderly halls of Stephens Elementary in Little Rock, Ark., principal Sharon Brooks steers a tight ship: Students dressed in khaki-and-blue uniforms quietly weave between classrooms in single file.
Meet the man who rehabilitated children at recess through 'rock-paper-scissors'.But every day at 12:30 p.m., when recess rolls around, all of that well-defined order goes out the window.
"When they hit the playground, their behavior just goes in reverse, and we have some trouble controlling things out there," said Brooks.
For many of its 460 students, Stephens Elementary is a sanctuary -- an oasis of calm in the middle of Little Rock's gang-ridden 12th Street neighborhood
NEA - National Education Association
May 5, 2010
Recess coaches put "play" back into the playground.
It's recess at Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Inglewood, California, and children parade single file onto the playground. At the sound of a whistle, they run to different corners of the blacktop and form orderly groups to play four-square, kickball, handball, and basketball. Others twirl hula hoops or jump rope in double-dutch. There's even a friendly soccer game at the far end of the schoolyard.
There's no pushing or shoving, no screaming, name calling, or teasing, and there are no kids left on the sidelines because the schoolyard bullies are hogging the ball.
This is recess minus the chaos. This is a Playworks recess.
Colorado Education News
April 16, 2010
Recess went better at Denver’s Swansea Elementary School last week than any week Principal Mary Sours can remember in the past ten years.
Kids were running instead of standing against the wall. Disputes were minimal. Energy was expended in a productive, healthy way that left youngsters ready for learning when they went back inside.
Oh, what a difference a week can make. And Sours and her teachers don’t ever want things to go back to the way they were.
Christian Science Monitor
February 4, 2010
Recess isn't about just play.
More than 80 percent of elementary-school principals believe that recess has a positive impact on academic achievement, according to a new Gallup survey released Thursday. The support for recess comes even though testing pressures have led to cutbacks in the amount of playtime in US schools.
Oregonian
May 31, 2010
Sixth-grade recess. I'm running a post pattern across the playground, looking back into the sun, when Mr. Hoelck -- who always insisted on playing quarterback -- fired a perfect spiral ... that sliced right through my hands.
"Lost it in the sun," I explained to my homeroom teacher when I returned to the huddle.
"Well," Mr. Hoelck said, "open your mouth next time."
Those were the days at Great Neck Elementary. Survival of the fittest. Put up or shut up. The haves bullying the have-nots, and Mr. Hoelck grabbing us by the throat when we got too far out of line.
Great memories? Sure ... and memorable humiliations. Recess was the half hour in the school day when we did what came naturally - playing outside - in that white-bread, middle-class community. We knew the same games. We spoke the same language....
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