NEWSHEALTHY STUDENTS

This guest post comes from Darell Hammond, CEO of KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit dedicated to saving play for America's children.

This week, our Congress will be returning from their August recess--a yearly tradition that recognizes the human need to take a break from a grueling schedule and spend some time playing.

At the same time, as children across the country return to school, some will find that they have no recess at all. Others will find that their combined recess and lunch period is so short, they have to choose between food and play.

Play is under attack in our nation's schools--and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running on the schoolyard.

Despite countless studies proving that play is integral to children's learning and health, most kids aren't getting enough space and time to play during the school day. These seven absurd stories from last school year say it all:

In response to pressure from parents, educators and grassroots advocates, Scholastic Inc. will drastically limit its practice of partnering with corporations to produce classroom material, the company announced last week.

The publisher had been under fire since May, when it was forced to stop distributing a fourth-grade curriculum called “The United States of Energy” that had been paid for by the coal industry and distributed to classrooms across the country. Boston nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood had called on Scholastic to drop the curriculum, and after achieving success, expanded its campaign -- in concert with online social action platform Change.org -- to lobby for sweeping reforms to Scholastic’s controversial “InSchool Marketing” division.

At the end of last year, Nicole Baumann heard a story that shocked her. It happened just outside her sons' school, Edison Elementary in Denver, Colorado.

"Some parents had just mentioned it to me in passing," said Baumann. "They were standing outside with their kids and this fog overcame them."

The fog was not a natural. It was chemical. Until then, Baumann didn't realize that Denver Public Schools pays TruGreen Chemlawn for lawn maintenance. As a member of the Edison Elementary green team, she and some of her team members were upset.

"These kids are rolling around in the grass," said Baumann. "Our kids' immune systems are not really developed yet. They're susceptible. Why would we knowingly apply this where our kids are playing in the grass when we know there are other options out there that are safe?"

Jeff Short is a high school baseball coach now, but he used to be just another teenage ball player, dreaming of the Major Leagues. So he knows what his players are thinking when they watch their favorite players.

"When you look at a Major League dugout, and you see these players with tobacco," Short said, "First thing you think of - oh that's cool. Oh, I can do that."

A coalition of public health groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and Smoke Free Texas, are trying to stop this cycle. They've started a petition on Change.org, trying to get Major League Baseball to ban smokeless tobacco, just like they did a few years ago in the minor leagues.

Did you ever climb a tree as a kid? Pick up the little seed pods it scattered on the ground or pulled down a branch to see the new buds of spring about to open?

You may not have realized it, but you were in terrible danger. Or so say New Jersey school inspectors, who insist that a rural child-care facility cut down every branch off the trees in their yard that hang below seven feet.

Inspectors told Sue Maloney, director of the Moorestown Children's School, that if she doesn't cut down the branches, she'll lose her childcare license. To them, the branches aren't a natural part of the children's play area, but simply "overgrown vegegation," that pose "suspended hazards" to the children that attend.

Lost in the debate about education reform is the undeniable fact that the public education system in the United States is one of the most violent in the world.

Despite overblown media reports about school shootings and daily exaggerations about youth crime, it is not the students who are perpetrating the majority of this violence. We’re talking about violence initiated by the teachers and administrators that we trust to safeguard our children’s education. Teaching is one of the most admirable professions -- which is why it’s a shame that this profession is muddied by one of America’s darker and more insidious legal practices – corporal punishment.

Of the 20 states that legally employ corporal punishment, Texas hits the most students every year -- nearly 50,000 during the 2005-2006 school year, according to the latest available statistics. In fact, administrators and teachers in Texas legally hit more students every year than the rest of Europe combined. That could change, though, if a bill to end corporal punishment at Texas schools passes this year.

How old were you when you realized your actions could make a difference in the world?

Jake Levine is just a first-grader, but he's already learning how to use what he has to help others. He took a school assignment and a $10 bill and turned it into $1,500 for Leukemia Research Foundation.

The inspiration came from his teacher, Sue Veni, who read the kids a book called "The Goodness Gorillas" - about a group of school kids who try spreading kindness around their school and community. Veni then gave each of her students an envelope with $10 in it, asking them to "think outside the envelope," to use the money to do good in their own community.

That's when the wheels in Jake Levine's head started turning. His own grandmother, who he called "Nunee," died of leukemia in 2009. Jake had wonderful memories of Nunee - special stories she would tell and cookies she would bring over just for him.

"Jake said he wanted to try and raise money to help others in Nunee's situation, and he said he wished he could have done it sooner, before she passed away, so that she would have been cured," Alisa Levine, Jake's mother, told Wilmette-Kenilworth's Patch.

On Sunday, Sierra Krizman felt perfectly fine.

On Monday, she fell ill. On Tuesday, April 10, 2007, 20-year-old Krizman died from bacterial meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord.

Krizman was a Colorado college student who died without benefiting from a vaccine that can reduce the risk of contracting this deadly disease. Usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection, meningitis can result in brain damage, hearing loss, or learning disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When her family shared her story at a school assembly in Casper, Wyoming, teacher Susan Griffith's social studies students were horrified. The disease disproportionately affects youth and college students. When Griffith suggested the class write a vaccination bill as a class project, they took her up on it. Their work paid off: Today, it was introduced in the state legislature.

15 states mandate meningitis vaccination for college freshmen, but Wyoming's not one of them. The bill Griffith's students came up with would vaccinate all Wyoming 11 and 12-year-olds (which would cost $574,000 a year) and possibly all children 13-18 during the first year (bringing the total initial cost to $2.3 million).

Double dutch. Hopscotch. Tetherball. Playground classics, right? Not in Pinellas County, Florida, where daily recess doesn't exist.

Kindergarteners in Pinellas County have two "structured activity breaks" a day, according to the district. For first graders and above, individual schools decide whether students get "free time" during lunch.

But if you've ever galloped across a room in a high-speed game of tag, you know that "structured activity" and free play are very different. Experts agree that recess is vitally important to children's mental, physical and social development.

Enter Meg Rosker, who took her oldest son (her children are 6, 3 and 2) out of his Pinellas County school when she discovered he didn't have a scheduled recess. She's now homeschooling and campaigning for recess reform, and she's using Change.org to convince her school district to bring back 30 minutes of play a day.

Nestled on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa is the Malcolm Price Lab School, a 400-student "teaching laboratory" where professors and their protégés put teaching tactics into action.

This prestigious school won praise in 2009 for becoming the first school in Iowa to prepare all of its meals from scratch. Where do the bulk of the ingredients come from? Local Cedar Falls farms. Awesome.

Students also get a first-hand look at how food is made from the school's organic garden. Parents and community volunteers help tend the garden, teaching students - who run from six-week-olds to 12th-graders - how to grow fruits and veggies without the help of insect poison and toxins.

So imagine how surprised parents were when, in the summer of 2010, they discovered that the University of Northern Iowa was spraying the nearby lawn with pesticides.

Not only do pesticides go against the "organic" principles the kids are learning in the school garden, they've also been labeled as a health threat to growing children. So the parents decided to take action.