Chicago Teachers’ Union President Karen Lewis met this winter with POWER-PAC parent leaders and agreed to work with us on the Recess for All! Campaign to bring recess back to Chicago elementary school students.

This May and June, the CTU (Chicago Teachers’ Union) and POWER-PAC – along with new partners Raise Your Hand and health advocates – are co-hosting a series of forums for parents and teachers to unpack the issues of implementation of recess in Chicago’s schools.

The Teachers’ Union Chief of Staff, Jackson Potter, is also on the Illinois Recess in Schools Task Force convened by State Senator Kimberly Lightford and created by a resolution of the Illinois legislature that POWER-PAC helped write and pass this year. POWER-PAC leader Karen Lynn Morton and representatives of the Chicago Public Schools and other districts are also members of the Task Force.

And under pressure from POWER-PAC and its recess allies, the Chicago Public Schools just released (May 2011) a toolkit to help schools that are working out plans to re-instate recess in their school.