A mom recently went to her daughter’s Maryland elementary school to ask why the kids aren’t allowed to play tag at recess—or even to close their eyes.
“We’d recently transferred from another district and my daughter was taken aback by how many rules there were,” said the mom, whose name is being kept private to protect her identity.
There are indeed a lot of rules at the girl’s new school—four typed pages of them. The mom found this out after the school administrator handed her a copy of the “Montgomery County Public Schools Playground Supervision Recess Procedures for Playground Aides.” It states, among other things:
- Baseball and football games are not permitted at any time.
- Haphazard running, chasing and tag games on the blacktop are not permitted.
- A student may not begin to swing on rings and bars until the student ahead of him/her has finished.
Once they do swing or climb, they must use an “opposed thumb grip.”…
