Yet while that was going on, the science showing the benefits of play was also growing increasingly robust. Galvanized by both the rollback of recess in some places and the stronger science backing play, and bolstered by a relatively new focus in education on social-emotional learning, preventing bullying, and reducing childhood obesity, recess has made something of a comeback. According to a report put together by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 95 percent of kindergartners have recess. But that figure drops to 91 percent for 5th grade, and only about 35 percent of the elementary schools that offer 6th grade give those students a recess period.

As recess rebounds, albeit not as swiftly as some would like, advocates have begun to make headway not only in bringing play to more schools, but in making sure that play at recess benefits all children and not just the most vocal or outgoing.

Jill Vialet founded Playworks, which works with schools to give kids opportunities to play safely and meaningfully, in 1996 after speaking with a principal in Oakland, California, who complained that recess had devolved into the most fraught part of the day for educators. The idea that play should happen organically and without adult direction might sound nice, but that wasn’t a reality for what turned out to be a lot of schools.

This year, the nonprofit has reached about 1,200 schools, or about 700,000 students, in 23 cities across the United States.* Most of the students in the schools Playworks works directly with are poor, and the vast majority are students of color. This week, Playworks is announcing a new push to reach 7,000 elementary schools serving 3.5 million kids, or about 10 percent of elementary schools, by 2020. “Ultimately if we could put ourselves out of business, that would be a success,” Vialet said.

That’s a lofty goal, but the group is gaining momentum and has picked up some $26 million in funding from groups like the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. And where the group has frequently sent its own trained coaches into schools, Playworks will increasingly focus on training people already working in schools in how to facilitate play. “Play is the way we teach the newest members of our community the social mores that make civil society function,” Vialet said. “I think our democracy depends on it.”

Pepe Gonzalez is the principal of Laurel Dell, an elementary school in San Rafael, California, about 15 miles north of San Francisco. Before his school turned to Playworks, kids involved in minor playground scuffles used to make their way to his office for mediation. Teachers were spending valuable time after the bell rang trying to resolve who had shoved whom, which was eating into math and reading. After Gonzalez heard about the organization from a nearby school that had gotten a grant to use it, he and several other schools teamed up last year to try it out. For one week a month, a Playworks coach spends time on campus teaching kids games and facilitating positive interactions among students. For the other three weeks, a teacher at the school who has been trained by Playworks and a team of trained junior coaches (fourth- and fifth-graders) rove the playground during recess, starting games, mediating disputes, and encouraging everyone to join in. Whenever the Playworks coach is on campus, he takes time to meet with the teacher and junior coaches to teach them new games and talk strategy, and they meet without him weekly. “It changed what students were doing every day,” Gonzalez said.