Free-Range Kids

Middle Schoolers Banned from Massachusetts School Playground

A 12-year-old makes a compelling argument for being allowed to frolic freely.

Lenore Skenazy | 11.9.2026 11:00 AM

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(Katie Hammond)

Middle school kids in a small Massachusetts town are fighting for their right to play on the playground after school.

In an op-ed in the local paper, the Carlisle Mosquito, 12-year-old Caroline Dailey wrote that she and her friends like to stay and play outside after school.

This generally isn't an activity that is frowned upon, especially in an era when the alternative is often hurrying home to a screen. But "during the second week of school," she writes, "that changed. The superintendent came outside, blew his whistle, and told us that middle schoolers couldn't stay on the plaza after school anymore. At first, we thought he was joking." 

But no. A long dormant rule, recently revived by the acting superintendent, requires the school's playground/blacktop area to be free of middle schoolers until the elementary school lets out half an hour later. (The middle schoolers start earlier and get out at 2:30, the younger kids at 3:05.)

Children frolicking outside could be distracting to those still in their classrooms, the superintendent explained in a letter to parents. And there is no one to supervise........

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