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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
What’s A School Without A Playground?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Whenever I visit a school, teachers and students almost always ask me the same question: What’s the best part of your job? I always have the same stock, but true answer: This is!
I love, love, love visiting schools — chatting with students, watching teachers in action, sitting in the cafeteria and soaking up the ambiance. It’s all so much fun sometimes I don’t want to leave.
At least, that’s the way I felt last week when I attended opening ceremonies for a new play area at Boyd Elementary School in northwest Atlanta. Boyd, located in one of the poorer sections of the city, sits on a gorgeous wooded lot.
Principals at land-locked campuses I’ve visited would be awestruck by the expansive grassy field in Boyd’s backyard — perfect for an annual field day. But, until now, Boyd didn’t have much in the way of a playground.
A lone jungle gym was so rusty Principal Bettye Wright had to ban students from playing on it. The basketball court, which was in a woeful state of disrepair, didn’t even have baskets. All that was left, I’m told, was some kind of climbing apparatus made from old tires.
Then Wright found out about a grant program from Lowe’s, which provides funding for schools. To her great delight, she secured $150,000 — far more than any campus has ever received before, the Lowe’s people told me — for two new playgrounds, a new basketball court, flower beds and a goldfish pond.
“It took my breath away, it really did,” Wright said of the donation.
Battling ants and heat, 100 Lowe’s volunteers installed all the new gear during two marathon days last month. The students were thrilled with the results — as was the principal.
Once the children returned to classes after the grand opening, Wright turned to one of the playgrounds and exclaimed: “I gotta swing!”
She did — which brings me to a conundrum I’ve long wondered about. That is, when a school is built nowadays, why are playgrounds frequently considered an amenity, an extra often funded by committed parents?
I mean, when did a school playground become a luxury anyway?
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