We are thrilled to report that the Right to Play Every Day bill is on to the Governor’s desk! After it’s signed all children in grades K-5 in public schools in IL will have 30 minutes of protected recess time during the school day starting this school year, and that schools won’t be able to take recess away as a punishment. 

This will be one of the strongest (and longest) recess/play bills in the country, and we couldn’t have done this without our hard-working chief sponsors, Sen. Peters and Rep Ortíz, the many orgs that endorsed this bill...and all of you who made calls, filled out witness slips, asked your friends to participate, etc because you know the real value of play in the school day!

We know that middle schoolers also need unstructured time and that ample research lays out the academic, social-emotional and health benefits of it.  We dealt with massive opposition from school management organizations like principals, superintendents and school board lobby groups, and this was the bill we could get now. We will continue to work on this important issue in the future.

Please donate today so we can continue our important work. IL-FPS runs on a shoestring budget and we’d like to hire a full-time staff person this year! We did this and much more having only two very part-time staff members and a volunteer executive director. This isn’t sustainable!

Stay tuned for updates on the elected representative school board for Chicago bill. It is supposed to be called today, but things have been very fluid on this, and it’s not confirmed that Senate President Don Harmon will call any bill.