Students enrolled in two Seguin ISD elementary schools can look forward to more time spent at recess when school starts in the fall.

That’s because the district will implement the first phase of the LiiNK Project which is designed to improve learning and behavior through increased physical activity.

LiiNK stands for Let’s Insipire Innovation N’ Kids, a program coordinated by Dr. Debbie Rhea at TCU. LiiNK is operational in eight Metroplex-area school districts.

When school starts this August, Jefferson and McQueeney elementary schools will offer recess for four 15 minute periods each day. Three Seguin ISD elementary campuses will implement LiiNK in fall 2019 and two more elementaries in fall 2020. Despite the planned increase in physical activity, classroom rigor is not compromised with the program. In fact, it actually increases.

LiiNK’s research shows that children who engage in more physical activity/unstructured play and quality content daily will do better academically than children who are sedentary, less creative and active, and pressured with the quantity of academic content daily.

This spring, Dr. Rhea has been providing training to Seguin ISD elementary campus staff so that LiiNK is up and running at the two campuses when school starts this fall.

Pete Silvius, director of whole child initiatives as Seguin ISD, will oversee the program.

“Our goal is that LiiNK will improve student health, create higher expectations of social responsibility, increase creativity for more effective classroom learning, decrease testing anxiety burnout from spending too much time cooped up in school,” Silvius said.

“As we’ve trained over the past few weeks it has been exciting to see our campus staff get excited about LiiNK. The increase in recess time will be an adjustment for students and staff alike but ultimately it is going to benefit our students. After all, that’s why we are here,” said Dr. Matthew Gutierrez, Seguin ISD superintendent.