After seven children broke bones on school playgrounds in Mt. Prospect this year, school officials made a decision: The old monkey bars had to go.
Now, the tops of slides are blocked off with yellow caution tape preventing kids from climbing on them. The blue S-shaped climber, declared to be too high, is off-limits also. Even the swings have been deemed unsafe.
“There’s not a lot of stuff to do on it anymore,” said Frankie Gorg, a 3rd grader at Euclid School in River Trails District 26.
This summer, the district will gut what is left of the existing playgrounds at River Trails’ two elementary schools. Last week, the children began the process of picking the replacement equipment.
“This playground will be safe so that if you fall off, you won’t get hurt,” Frankie said, as he and his classmates crowded around drawings of their choices.
There are plastic slides so legs will not burn, rings and poles from which to swing, and the most important part, according to the kids: lots of stuff on which to climb.
Across the country, park districts and forest preserves have been yanking out their old metal monkey bars and slides for years. But public schools have been slow to follow.
Dozens of schoolyards still have equipment that was purchased before World War II–back when slides and swing sets were 12 feet high, and horizontal ladders and chin-up bars were staked out in the corners of gravel play lots.
Playground experts say such equipment is unsafe. So, piece by piece, the play lots that have dotted schoolyards for years are being dismantled.
“The life expectancy of these playgrounds is 13 to 15 years, then they become obsolete. If they are designed well, they get used. And if they are used, they will get worn out,” said Ken Kutska, superintendent of parks and planning for the Wheaton Park District.
When school playgrounds are built, oversight is often spotty because safety laws generally do not govern what happens outside school buildings. Similarly, there are few mandates regulating what should be on public playgrounds. Recommendations have been set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Playground Safety Institute, but compliance is voluntary.
Only a handful of states, including California, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas, have regulations in place governing playground safety.
State-of-the-art playgrounds do not come cheap: A new lot can cost from $100,000 to $150,000. Nonetheless, some schools have decided they have no choice but to replace their equipment.
Wheaton-Warrenville School District 200 removed the wooden structure at Whittier School’s playground for a safer cluster of red and green plastic slides and climbers connected by bridges and ramps. The district is planning to overhaul the playground at Hawthorne Elementary School this summer.
Evanston Elementary District 65 will begin a massive two-year overhaul of its 13 elementary school playgrounds this summer.
In River Trails District 26, administrators are recommending that $70,000 originally earmarked for building repairs be used for the new playgrounds.
“We had a good year,” said River Trails Supt. Shirley Smalley. “There were no roofs that needed repairs, and no boilers broke.”
In the meantime, the district is doing makeshift fixes so that playgrounds, despite the prohibited equipment, will still be safe and interesting for the kids.
Parents have used chalk to draw hopscotch and other games on the pavement. Students also are getting jump ropes, Frisbees and balls with which to play.
“The kids need things to do on the playground,” said parent Sue Dickson of Mt. Prospect. “If you go to our playground, you see we don’t have a lot else to offer.”
