Would you rather sit on the floor talking to your friends or would you rather be able to stand up and move around while talking to your friends? You probably chose the second option, but the new recess policies prevent you from doing that. The teachers at West Middle School recently changed some of the rules during the indoor recess that keeps kids safer.

If you don’t already know, the new policies are that you must wait in line to play volleyball and play in groups of five. Basketball has become more strict, for example, teachers are more focused on the kids and the rules. Basketball is now played in groups of five. Kids that don’t play sports have to sit on the ground and talk and no phones are allowed during recess either.

The new rules are here to keep students safe. Mr. Mazjack, a 7th-grade teacher, says, “That when you put 275 kids in a small gym, you can’t just do whatever you want because people will get hurt.” Mr. Smiley, the West Middle School Principal, agrees with him by saying, “It was getting very chaotic and it was getting to be a situation where people could get hurt.”

A 7th grader, Julia Jameson states, “They are just too strict.” Students don’t like the new rules because they don’t enjoy sitting on the floor and waiting in lines. Students would rather stand up, move around, and have more freedom. Recess is supposed to be a time where you can move around and have a break from all the school work that you get but the new rules make recess way to strict and not fun anymore. 7th-grade girl, Adrienne, tells us that she likes the old rules better than the new ones.

Before the new rules, you were still supposed to sit on the ground when you weren’t playing a sport, but the teachers didn’t really enforce that rule. Now they are more strict and they are making sure that you are sitting up against the wall if you aren’t playing volleyball or basketball. Also, you were allowed to use your phones before but now phones aren’t allowed. Before you could play volleyball with as many people as you want, but now you have to wait in line and play in small groups. You used to be able to get away with playing two or three basketball games in a row and you could bunch up instead of waiting in a line, but now the teachers are watching and paying more attention to the games.

As you can see the opinions are different between the students and the teachers about the new recess rules, but the new rules will be very helpful to keep kids safe and to make it fair for indoor recess.