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Stonebridge teacher tells board: "Kids need to be outside"
Summary
Third-grade teacher and school-forest coordinator Zach Singleton told the board his two-year classroom experiment taking students outside produced better behavior, lower anxiety and improved problem solving, and urged the district to prioritize outdoor instructional time despite pressure on instructional minutes.
Zach Singleton, a third-grade teacher and the school-forest coordinator at Stonebridge Elementary, told the Stillwater Area Public Schools board that a multi-year experiment to take students outside more often has yielded clear benefits in behavior and mental health.
"Indisputably, the results told me one thing. Kids need to be outside," Singleton said, describing improvements in critical thinking, reduced anxiety and greater mental stamina among students he works with. He told the board the chief barrier is instructional-minute demand: "Every minute of the day already spoken for and it is difficult to find time to get our students outside," he said.
Singleton asked the district to be more intentional about where it applies pressure on students and to preserve time for exploration and outdoor learning during the school day. The board thanked him for his testimony and indicated administration could review the concerns and explore possibilities that fit within state rules about what may be discussed in public meetings.
