{"id":115627,"date":"2026-01-12T22:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115627\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T22:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:32:07","slug":"florida-lawmakers-propose-mandatory-recess-for-middle-school-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115627\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida lawmakers propose mandatory recess for middle school students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\">WWSB<\/a>) &#8211; Florida lawmakers have filed legislation that would require middle school students to receive at least 20 minutes of free play recess each day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The requirement currently applies only to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The new bill would extend the mandate to sixth through eighth grades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rep. Stark said she filed the bill after talking to several students who said a recess break is good for their mental health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2025\/12\/06\/tech-groups-seek-expedited-appeal-florida-social-media-law-minors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2025\/12\/06\/tech-groups-seek-expedited-appeal-florida-social-media-law-minors\/\">Tech groups seek expedited appeal of Florida social media law for minors<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis gives them an opportunity to either just decompress on their own or, you know, have a friend that they\u2019re decompressing with, or they\u2019re just going back and being retrospective on what they\u2019ve learned so far during the day,\u201d Stark said. \u201cAnd if it\u2019s been an overwhelming subject, then they can absorb that and move on to the next thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Stark\u2019s bill and a similar Senate version are filed for the legislative session that starts Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Florida lawmakers have filed legislation that would require middle school students to receive at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,58393,30,58390,29,58391,58394,58392],"class_list":{"0":"post-115627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-education-bill","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-middle-school-recess","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-mandatory-recess-legislation","14":"tag-middle-school-free-play","15":"tag-student-mental-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}