Entering our 30th year of elevating the importance of play and infusing high-quality recess into 1,400+ schools nationwide, we’ve learned a lot about what it takes to equip adults in schools to create an environment where all kids feel valued, have opportunities to lead and learn critical life skills while having fun with peers. As CEO of Playworks, I see this firsthand every time I step into a Playworks school or playground.
One junior coach comes to mind, a fifth grader named Mikela who jumped at the chance to join the Junior Coach program to lead on the playground and help ensure younger students experience the joy of play every day.
Mikela quickly bonded with Stella, a kindergartner who loved tag, and with Kimberly, a fellow Junior Coach who became like a sister. Through these relationships, Mikela learned that leadership means more than giving directions. It’s about building friendships, lifting others up and spreading joy.
Young leaders like Mikela discover their confidence and build connections through the power of play.
And we know right now kids are needing connection and opportunities to play in person with other kids more than ever, with the growing impact of time spent on screens, social media and now also with AI chatbots and toys.
I’m thrilled to be reaching kids like Mikela, Stella and Kimberly and more than 638,000 other students across the country — and our vision is for every child in America to have access to safe, fun, healthy play every day. Playworks can’t do this alone, nor can teachers or schools.
We need a well-prepared ecosystem of caring adults implementing research-based practices to ensure kids are experiencing high-quality recess and a school climate that makes them want to attend every day.
Boosting attendance through play
While we knew intrinsically that creating a sense of belonging and joy in schools would make kids want to go to school and engage more fully, we now have the data to prove it. In Title I schools, chronic absenteeism is significantly lower when Playworks is in place. In 2025, University of California, Berkeley, published a study on the relationship between Playworks programming and chronic absenteeism rates during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. Data showed that schools with Playworks had a statistically significant lower proportion of chronic absenteeism than schools without Playworks.
This was not surprising to our partner, Hedy Chang, CEO and founder of Attendance Works, who believes that “attendance improves when we align supports — across classrooms, communities and playgrounds.”
Chronic absenteeism is complex. It’s shaped by housing, healthcare and transportation. But inside school walls,
the emotional ecosystem matters. And recess reveals what stressors students are carrying — and what they need.
It’s no surprise that over 90% of educators report that our programs enable students to feel welcome and develop new relationships with others.
Reaching more kids through partnership
Schools are not the only places where young people are seeking connections. Afterschool and summer programs are perfect places for kids to play, build relationships and practice leadership skills. This is why Playworks is building partnerships with youth-serving organizations to share its evidence-based practices and support out-of-school time (OST) professionals to infuse high-quality play into their afterschool and summer programs while also working with neighboring schools to deliver recess during the school day. Playworks has adapted our training to address unique conditions in afterschool and summer programs such as using play for transitions between recreation and academic activities and managing mixed age groups. Our core practices work well in these spaces where adults have multiple roles to play in program delivery.
Courtesy of Elizabeth Cushing
Elizabeth Cushing
Called TagTeam, this collaborative scaling model offers certification and professional development for youth workers on game facilitation, group management, conflict resolution and use of Playworks’ observation-based measurement tool, the Great Recess Framework. Staff are trained on how to develop cohorts of 4th– and 5th-grade “Junior Coaches” to assist during recess and participate in leadership trainings after school. Our curriculum empowers students to take on authentic leadership roles both on and off the playground. Finally, Playworks supports youth-serving organizations to partner with their local schools and get paid through school fee contracts which can be used to pay their staff to deliver recess during the day. What’s key to developing these partnerships with schools is for community-based organizations to have authentic conversations with their school partners exploring how they can work together to reach their shared goals and more holistically address kids’ needs.
[Related: Why unconstrained kids need unconstrained ecosystems]
Not only is this model creating a more expansive community of educators to support kids’ well-being, it is also creating career development opportunities for youth workers during the school day, offering additional paid work hours and developing new revenue streams for youth-serving organizations. Camp Fire CEO, Shawna Rosenzweig, shared that “TagTeam is an exciting partnership opportunity that is empowering our affiliates to deepen their partnerships with local schools, access high-quality professional development for their staff and engage young people in a new way through play.”
Join us in increasing joy and belonging
Playworks is seeking more youth-serving organization partners to bring joy and high-quality play into more elementary schools. We can provide professional development to youth development professionals and their managers for how to implement effective play practices for summer camps and afterschool programs. Playworks can also collaborate to form partnerships with local elementary schools that are in need of help and may not realize the opportunities available with other youth-serving organizations.
A couple of play-based ideas you can try on:
- Consistently incorporate positive language through play activities to model teamwork, respect and perseverance.
- Teach children to resolve disagreements on their own to help them build this important durable skill in an environment that feels safe to practice.
Playworks offers free resources specifically for OST organizations on our website and on our YouTube channel.
Let’s create a supportive educational ecosystem that supports all youth to thrive. If this fits your mission, then please reach out to me at elizabeth.cushing@playworks.org. We can’t wait to partner with you!
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Elizabeth Cushing is the CEO of Playworks, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of play to bring out the best in every child. Elizabeth joined Playworks in 2004 and was named president in 2011 and CEO in 2020.
