School district bans playing tag on the playground, citing emotional duress

A school district in Washington state banned the game of tag at recess, to prevent emotional duress to students, and parents were not happy.

“I totally survived tag,” mother Kelsey Joyce told a local TV station. “I even survived red rover, believe it or not.”

Parents formed a Facebook group with more than 400 members asking the district to reconsider. And on Friday district officials retracted that ban after the huge outcry. “The ‘hands-off’ policy intended for unstructured play and recess however well intended, has led to confusion, false reporting and is clearly not supported by many staff and many parents,” the statement read. “Although the plan was focused on keeping students safe, it lacked stakeholder participation and support.”

The ban comes at a moment when some education advocates think that schools need to have more unstructured play time, so they develop their social skills in addition to their academic ones.

The district didn’t just reinstate regular tag. “Tag as we know it and have known it is reinstated,” the district wrote. “In addition, students may continue to play ‘flag tag’ as they wish.”

Perhaps not unrelatedly, Mercer Island High School recently lost its football game to nearby rival Bellevue 56-0.

This story was originally published September 25, 2015 at 5:54 PM with the headline "School district bans playing tag on the playground, citing emotional duress."