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Educating the Student Body
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Eighteen percent of elementary schools with a poverty rate over 
75 percent (based on the proportion of students eligible for free or 
reduced-price lunches) provided 1st graders with no recess, com-
pared with 3 percent of schools with a 50-74 percent poverty rate, 4 
percent with a 35-49 percent poverty rate, and 4 percent with a less 
than 35 percent poverty rate. 
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Fourteen percent of urban elementary schools did not offer recess to 
1st graders, compared with 6 percent of schools on the urban fringe, 
6 percent of those in towns, and 3 percent of rural schools.
The above patterns for 1st graders persisted through 6th grade: 24 per-
cent of 6th graders in high-minority schools, 28 percent in high-poverty 
schools, and 24 percent in urban schools did not get recess, compared with 
13 percent of 6th graders overall.
The National Association of State Boards of Education’s (NASBE’s) 
Center for Safe and Healthy Schools (2013) State School Healthy Policy 
Database supports the above survey findings. It shows that most public 
elementary schools (83-88 percent) offer daily recess across elementary 
grades, while 47 percent offer it 1-4 days per week:
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Large schools generally are less likely than small- and medium-sized 
schools to have daily recess for 1st through 3rd grades.
•
City schools are less likely than schools in other locales to offer daily 
recess for 1st graders. City schools also are less likely than schools 
in urban fringes and rural areas to schedule daily recess for 2nd 
through 5th grades.
•
Schools with the highest poverty concentrations are less likely than 
those with lower poverty concentrations to offer daily recess for 
elementary grades. 
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Differences also exist by minority enrollment, with schools with the 
highest minority enrollment being less likely than those with lower 
minority enrollment to provide daily recess.
The percentage of public elementary schools offering more than 
30 minutes per day of recess ranges from 19 to 27 percent across elemen-
tary grades. The average number of minutes per day of scheduled recess for 
elementary grades differs by school characteristics. Large schools on average 
offer fewer average minutes per day of recess than small- and medium-sized 
schools; the same is true for schools with the highest and lowest poverty 
concentrations, respectively. For further detail, a state-by-state list of poli-
cies from the NASBE State School Health Policy Database can be found in 
Appendix C.

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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Approaches to Physical Activity in Schools
 
275
Since physical activity, such as recess, has been shown to improve aca-
demic achievement, this recess gap may contribute to, not decrease, dispari-
ties in academic achievement.
Support for Recess
Both international and U.S. organizations support the importance of 
recess.