“We need to get kids moving again,” Georgia state Rep. Demetrius Douglas, a Democrat, told fellow legislators this week. He introduced a bill that would make recess mandatory for schoolchildren in that state from kindergarten through fifth grade.

It would also prevent schools from keeping students out of recess as punishment.

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“Kids in school need an outlet,” said Douglas, a former UGA and NFL football player, according to WSBTV in Atlanta. “We have a lot of problems in school with behavior, chronic diseases, that I used to see in my grandmother at a later age — and we need to get kids moving again.”

Recess is optional in Georgia schools; it’s up to superintendents and principals to schedule it. Douglas wants it codified in law.

Student test scores have gone up, fights have gone down, and kids are less restless after they’ve been outside.

There is new action on the state and community level across the nation: the re-implementation of recess. After years of the disappearance of unstructured recess time from the school day to make way for more book learning and test prep, schools and parents are realizing that change may have caused more problems than it’s solving.

Florida is in the midst of a statewide debate about mandatory recess.

Educators with Betty Jane Elementary School in Akron, Ohio, just increased recess from 15 to 20 minutes each day. That five-minute difference, according to teachers, has had a huge impact: Student test scores have gone up, fights have gone down, and kids are less restless after they’ve been outside, WEWS News, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio reported.

Students at Betty Jane Elementary also do a “Fit 5” routine every morning; they get minutes of aerobic exercise right after morning announcements. The principal says it helps contribute to student productivity as well.

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State legislators in Arizona this week offered bipartisan support for a bill that would mandate that students in kindergarten through fifth grade be given at least 50 minutes of “unstructured recess.” HB 2082 needs a final roll-call vote before going to the Senate.

“You hear a lot of problems now about classroom behavior,” Christine Davis told KPHO, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix. Davis’ daughter attends a local elementary school there. “[The kids are] jittery, and the answer seems to be to punish them by withdrawing recess — which, to a lot of parents, seems like [pouring] gas on a fire.”

Some people question whether administrations — or legislators, for that matter — should be telling individual schools how to put together their days.

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State Rep. Jesus Rubalcava, the primary sponsor of HB 2082, believes recess gives teachers and kids a chance each day to hit the reset button. He has taught hyperactive students and said a break during the day helps them focus better when they return to class.

Rep. Don Shooter said he’s not disturbed by the mandate, as The Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona, reported. Instead, he sees it as “an antidote to a host of other directives about what schools need to teach.”

Related: Recess Isn’t Fun Anymore

“This bill tries to compensate for us telling them to teach to the test and do this and do that,” said Rep. Shooter. “So if we’re going to tell them what to do, let’s do it in a balanced way.”

Lawmakers this week added a definition of “unstructured recess” to mean a period during which adults do not define the activities or social interaction of students “except for setting reasonable health and safety restrictions,” The Daily Courier reported. It will also permit schools to include lunch recess in that 50-minute mandate.