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New recess model uses older kids to monitor younger ones

It’s recess on a Wednesday afternoon at Walter Bracken STEAM Academy and kids are shooting hoops, playing four square and slapping a tetherball.

Business as usual — except the children are being monitored by kids a few years older dressed in yellow traffic vests, playing the role of coach to make sure these youngsters don’t break the rules.

It’s not restrictive, promises Sean Keelan, a master trainer with nonprofit Playworks. This play-with-purpose model teaches kids to share and be a good sport, win or lose.

“What we find right now on the playground is kids will go out and play tag, they’ll shove each other, they don’t know how to play positively with each other… and then there are fights and then they go back to class and they’re not focused on learning,” said Katie Decker, principal at Walter Bracken STEAM Academy, a Title I magnet elementary school, who brought the program to Hollingsworth and Long elementary schools for a pilot run last spring.

Nevada Medical Center donated more than $10,000 and Justin Micatrotto, who co-owns the franchise for local Raising Cane’s operation, along with his wife, Renata, gave $7,500 to bring Playworks employees to the school to train students and teachers to use the recess model called “Recess Reboot.”

Decker is hoping results she saw at Hollingsworth and Long are replicated at Bracken: fewer fights, fewer children getting hurt, more classroom time to focus on schoolwork instead of playground quarrels.

“This is helping my kids who have a hard time negotiating or socializing with others,” she said. “This makes recess safer for them.”

Kristy Keller, a program director for Nevada Medical Center and former Clark County School District assistant superintendent, said the changes are particularly important for improving mental health among children.

“With the games they’re being taught this week, they have to look each other in the eye, they have to cooperate, they have to share. Things that you need in life to be successful, they’re learning on the playground,” she said.

Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker @reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.

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