{"doi":"10.1111/josh.70055","title":"When to Eat and When to Play: Variations in Recess and Lunch Scheduling Within a State 40‐Min Recess Policy","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Little is known on the implementation of school recess policies to explore the policy-to-practice gap and to ultimately promote quality recess for all students. The purpose was to determine recess scheduling in a state requiring 40 min of daily recess. METHODS: A cross-sectional document analysis of public elementary schools' recess schedules from the 2023 to 2024 school year (n = 526 available schools). Schedules by grade level were compared between school grades, rurality, and minority enrollment. RESULTS: Schedules were obtained from 113 (n = 535 grade-level schedules) schools. Overall, 51.4% of grades received two daily recess periods. The average total duration of recess was 34.4 (SD 11.8) minutes. A total of 43% of grades had recess before lunch. Upper grades had a shorter recess duration compared to lower grades (B -1.2 min, p = 0.009) and were more likely to have their first recess in the afternoon (OR 4.8, p < 0.001). Urban (p = 0.017) and high minority enrollment (p = 0.020) schools were more likely to have recess immediately following lunch. IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL HEALTH POLICY, PRACTICE, AND EQUITY: Schools should consider providing equal opportunities for recess duration and scheduling across grades and consider options for recess before lunch. CONCLUSIONS: Recess scheduling varies in frequency, duration, and timing within one state-level recess requirement.","journal":"Journal of School Health","year":2025,"id":553788,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7439,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":469098,"name":"Samantha M. Harden","orcid":"0000-0003-3520-2457","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1451166,"name":"Juan Lemus","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1451167,"name":"B. M. Stone","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395576,"name":"Daheia J. Barr‐Anderson","orcid":"0000-0001-5896-4388","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":412089,"name":"Christopher R. Long","orcid":"0000-0002-0574-7790","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715045,"name":"Erin K. Howie","orcid":"0000-0002-9948-7415","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:45.872391Z","pmid":"40778587","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}