The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Gaylene Heppe. She gets the award for the following.

ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

"I think that it's unfortunate that kids' lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they'll never develop on their own," said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. "Playing tag is just part of being a kid."

Oh so right Ms. Laferriere. If we take Principal Heppe's thinking to its logical conclusion, all school physical activity would be banned because children can get hurt.

Dr. Taylor notes that recess has already been eliminated in schools where he lives.(Alabama)

For providing instance of the nanny state running amok, Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe is today's knucklehead of the day.

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