Safe Zone Gives Green-Fields Students a Place to Play

When ’s student Character Committee got together last year to come up with ways to improve their school’s environment, they thought about what really mattered.

They thought about recess.

After brainstorming sessions, letters to school principal Jon Cohen and some final planning, they were set.

All it took, in the end, was their ingenuity and some yellow paint.

On Monday, the start of the statewide Week of Respect in schools, part of the new anti-bullying initiative, the students unveiled their finished idea: the Safe Zone, a painted yellow square at the edge of the blacktop where kids who want to be included in play at recess can go to let others know they want to be a part of games or activities.

“No one has been noticing that people have been sitting on the blacktop alone,” said Sara Hunley. “We thought of a place where they could sit and a friend would come over and let them play with them.”

It’s a problem the committee members said they’ve experienced themselves, whether because a game filled up or their friends wanted to do something else, leaving them by themselves.

“You just see everybody else playing with somebody and having fun,” Kara Yarusso said. “You feel left out and lonely.”

Guidance counselor Kelly Hansbury, who, along with reading specialist Lauren Janack, helped lead the Character Committee, said sometimes it’s just a matter of the elementary school students just not knowing to ask to get included, or not realizing they’ve left someone out.

“These kids, they’re good kids–they want to help, they just need a way to know how to help,” she said. “This gives them that opportunity.”

But the students wanted to give their classmates the option of some alone time, if they want it, which is why they came up with the idea of that designated spot to signal a desire to get involved, Hansbury said.

“Sometimes kids just want to use recess to decompress,” she said.

Now that the Safe Zone is in place, Green-Fields students will get a chance to see videos of skits the Character Committee put together to show how kids can use it on a day-to-day basis.

Committee member Adam Kinsley said it’s just as easy as it looks.

“If anyone comes and asks you to play, you can hop right out of the safe zone and play with them,” he said.