Philly kids get guaranteed recess, bathroom and water breaks under a new school wellness policy
Some parents said they used to send their children to school in diapers because of a lack of bathroom access, but a new wellness policy "makes dignity non-negotiable," one said.
For the first time, Philadelphia School District students have guaranteed bathroom and water breaks. Recess is promised. Silent lunches and collective punishment are forbidden.
Call it a victory for joy.
Philadelphia’s school board just adopted the district’s first-ever comprehensive wellness policy, two after a group of parents began pushing a “joy campaign” because, parent Jamila Carter said, “we refused to accept the unacceptable.”
» READ MORE: Parents say some Philly students wear diapers because they don’t get bathroom breaks. They’re pushing for change.
In the past, members of Lift Every Voice — a grassroots, Black-led parent organization growing in numbers and clout in the city — students inside some district schools weren’t allowed to drink water during the day. Entire classes were punished for the misdeeds of one or two students. And sometimes, parents sent their children to school in diapers because children weren’t always allowed to use the bathrooms.
The group of moms weren’t trained advocates, but they learned quickly, pushing the school board and district to codify rights that weren’t always guaranteed.
Now they are — on Thursday night, the school board signed off on bathroom and water breaks and mandatory recess and movement breaks for every 90 minutes of seated time for elementary school students
With pompoms and dancing, a drumline and cheers, Lift Every Voice members celebrated their victory at district headquarters Monday.
But the two-year path to winning their demands was often sobering, and the district officials who locked arms with them at a news conference were slow at first to sign off on the policy.
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., who now routinely talks about joy as one of the district’s core values, credited the parents for pressing the issue.
“You know what Frederick Douglass once said? He said, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. And so I want to thank the members of Lift Every Voice. I wish we had done this much sooner. But I’m pleased that we’re doing it today,” Watlington said.
Amy Faulring, a parent of two district students, said it was a happy day, but the campaign taught parents a sobering thing.
“Even in some of the best schools, these practices were happening, in buildings that families fight to get into and feel proud of,” said Faulring. “That tells us this wasn’t about one school, it was about culture, and culture does not shift by accident. When basic protections aren’t written down, they become negotiable. They depend on which building you’re in or which parent feels empowered enough to speak up. Codifying this into policy changes that.”
The policy, Faulring said, “sets a clear floor, it creates consistency, and it makes dignity non-negotiable.”
The priorities, said Lift Every Voice member LaTi Spence, came right from kids.
“Our children told us what was wrong,” said Spence. “They told us what it felt like to sit in classrooms thirsty, how hard it was to have silent lunches. They told us where joy was missing.”
Councilmember Kendra Brooks said the policy fixes things that parents and students had to tolerate for too long.
“When we think about children holding their bodies because bathroom access is protected, or sitting for hours without movement, or rushing through silent lunches, that’s not discipline,” Brooks said, who was a parent activist before she was a politican. “That’s not discipline. That’s not rigor. It’s actually dehumanizing.”