My career as an agitator parent begins weakly!

I've always wanted to be one of those parents. You know, the kind the school board hates to see. The kind that yells a lot if they want to ban books in the library, or if they want to cut programs because they're out of money, or if they don't do enough to stop bullying. I always thought that would be fun. Well, this week I got my chance, but it wasn't all that dramatic.

Apparently the Arizona Legislature, taking a break from driving us deeper into debt and not raising taxes, passed a law requiring school boards across the state to hold a public meeting to decide whether or not recess should be structured rather than free play. They didn't require that it be implemented, just that boards hold a public meeting. I fear this is some kind of ploy to get rid of P.E., but that's a battle for the future. The idea of structured recess is so idiotic that I figured the response would be huge, and it was. Parents could respond on-line, but I actually went to the board meeting. Before the floor was even opened to comments, the superintendant said that the law simply required a meeting and that the board had absolutely no intention of changing how the kids played at recess. He also mentioned that they received 550 e-mails about the issue and 540 of them were for keeping recess anarchic. Yay, sane parents! So I was not only on the "correct" side (as I see it), but I was in the huge majority as well. There was little for me to agitate about!

Still, I felt pretty good. I went to the board meeting and was prepared to rant if dumb people wanted to force kids into planned activities during recess. Kids have enough planned activities during their days. Let the wildness during recess continue!!!!