Play Equity Should Be Our Goal As Schools Open In Wake of COVID-19
by Renata Simril
Young people have suffered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have experienced family members contracting or dying from the virus and/or loss of family income. Isolation and quarantining have led to increased stress and anxiety. The virus has disrupted the social lives of young people and sapped their joy.
I was reminded of this recently when I picked up my teenage son from his first socially distanced group outing, with his best friend, in over a year. He went skateboarding at a local park. His one-sentence comment when I picked him up — “That was fun!” — and the joyful look on his face brought home to me the value of play for young people, and the importance of connecting IRL with friends.
My son is privileged. For millions of other kids, the reality has been harder. Kids from Black, brown and poor communities have suffered dis-proportionally from COVID-19, while facing more fewer opportunities than young people from affluent Zip Codes.
A colleague from a local youth sports non-profit shared the story of a 13-year-old, who before the pandemic, thrived while playing soccer. A year later, after sharing a two-bedroom apartment with six people and lacking access to play, Jose laid on his bed during a virtual PE class, his face devoid of life. “He literally looks like another person,” my colleague told me.
With schools reopening in recent weeks, let’s celebrate the improving situation, but not lose sight of the myriad challenges we face.
School involves more than work in the classroom while sitting at desks. Kids benefit from running around and playing. When kids are physically active good things can happen.
Any kind of physical activity is good. Purposeful, organized programs can foster not only fitness, but also a sense of belonging, meaningful relationships with adult role models, a feeling of achievement, time management and increased girls’ participation.
Listing the benefits of sport is the easy part. It is more difficult to ensure that all kids benefit from organized sports and other forms of physical activity. The concept of #PlayEquity is more relevant than ever.
The basic premise of Play Equity is simple. All kids deserve to benefit from sports and physical activity regardless of family income, race, gender or physical ability. We know that equity did not exist prior to COVID-19, or during the pandemic, as wealthy kids played travel sports and less affluent young people stayed inactive. Now is the time to effect change.
We must provide our most vulnerable kids with opportunities to re-connect with themselves, their friends, coaches and schoolmates. Sport and play are essential elements of an enriched life.
This is a fight on two fronts: school- and community-based programs.
To improve kids’ lives, we must meet them where they are. That means schools. School-based sports programs have great potential. They typically cost parents little or nothing, and often serve as childcare for essential workers. Schools offer a reasonably secure setting and often provide built-in sports facilities. School programs eliminate the need for parents to transport their kids to a different location or force them to walk to parks in what are sometimes dangerous neighborhoods.
The push to build school programs does not eliminate our responsibility to also level the playing field in park-based and other community programs.
It would be nice if every family could afford the cost of playing sports outside the school setting. That, however, is a pipe dream. Pay-to-play is here to stay. Too many adults have a vested interest in its survival, fueling an industry in which adults make their living in youth sports by convincing parents that the road to athletic success lies in mom and dad shelling out vast amounts of money for registration, elite coaching, equipment, uniforms, camps and travel.
If pay-to-play will not change, our objective should be to provide competing low-cost or free programs of similar quality for young people who can least afford it.
For both school and outside programs to grow for all kids, we must convince policy makers that physical activity is essential to positive youth development. And, just as President Biden plans to invest more than $2 trillion in infrastructure to improve highways and bridges, we must prioritize and invest in-school and after-school programs that provide free or structured play involving sports or other kinds of physical activity.
It is one thing to intellectually recognize this. It is quite another to create real change. Youth sports advocates have done an admirable job in recent years of raising awareness of the value of sports. In fact, I have just spent 800 words doing that very thing. But it is not enough. The next big hurdle is creating the legislation, policies and funding required to truly create Play Equity. We need to move beyond awareness to real action and we need to do it now.
Renata Simril is the President & CEO of the LA84 Foundation, and the President of the Play Equity Fund.
