Georgia House votes to require recess

FEBRUARY 24, 2017 ATLANTA Students in Lisa Cunnigham’s second grade class play during a recess at the Burgess-Peterson Academy Friday, February 24, 2017. A bill introduced in the Georgia House would require at least a half-hour of recess for all Georgia students in kindergarten through fifth grade. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” and school recess are inalienable rights. That was essentially the message Lilly Nordby Wills brought to Georgia lawmakers Tuesday, hoping to right what she sees as a grave injustice at her Paulding County school. “We get 15 minutes of recess, sometimes not even that, ” the fourth-grader told a room full of state representatives. Her teacher gives students extra work, and if they don’t complete it fast enough they lose even those meager moments of carefree time. She had to forfeit some of her recess last month, scribbling her work while the other kids played. “That made me sad, ” she said. Kent D. Johnson/AJC