I am only entering the ground floor of trying to get a playground at a public school site. I have done a lot of online research on my own but could use the help of the more experienced Kaboom users. The city in CT is in the middle of rebuilding the elementary schools. They have finished the first one opening 2008 school year and it is a nice school of which approxmantly 1/4 of the school aged children will be attending, and it does have a new playground. While the other schools are being rebuilt one school or another will be in a modular school which does not have one piece of playground equipment. The children in fact play on a large parcel of very sparsely grassed area. According to the school district the budgeted money that they had for the 2007 year went to the High School "for accreditation reasons" so the money is not there and will not be in there in any forseeable future.
Since it appears that we are stuck with this situation, I would like to get something started and very quickly to get equipment for the school. The Director of Operations informed me that any equipment would have to be moved at the end of the portable school usage, which would be at least 4 years. In a rather pessimistic way he did say that parents and community could try to fundraise for the money through the PTA. I know from the research that it is A LOT of money. This is not something that I can wait a year for.
So in finally in leading to my question. What safe and inexpensive items or ways to cut cost can we do to make this move faster then trying to raise so much money.
Thank you
I would again talk to the district about whether or not they have any capital projects monies that could be put into this playground project. Capital project monies have to be spent on things like building infrastructure, grounds, facilities and not on educational things like accreditation for the high school, books, etc.
Since the playground is going to only be there for about 4 years, I would suggest looking into things that are not post-and-deck such as dome climbers (although some school districts don't allow them anymore)... all of the manufacturers on the kaboom list, including GameTIme and Landscape Structures Inc. (LSI) should have stand-alone pieces that are relatively inexpensive and that when combined with a good variety of other things, CAN make for a fun playground.
You should also ask the companies for a booklet of their pre-fabricated configurations. GameTime for example, usually has a "sale" every year where they are selling off pre-fab models...you take whatever color it is, or whatever configuration it is, and that's it. LSI has a number of pre-fab configurations that allow you to choose a paint color from about four options, I think, and the plastic component is always the same--tan. But these pre-fab configurations will give you a lot of savings as opposed to having a designer come in and design something for the playspace.
You should really get the district to commit to the project by doing the groundwork for you... they should get as much of the ground prep done as possible, and then you can utilize volunteers to do the installation with a manufacturer supervisor ON SITE.
I would still have conversations with the district about getting them to find at least some amount of money to help get this going, so that you know exactly how much your group is left to fund.
Try going REALLY old school with a natural playground. Think large expanses of sand for digging, building, designing. Think grass-covered hills/berms for rolling down, running up and racing around. Create a figure 8 race track. For some reason, kids love figure 8s!
This could all be done next weekend with pocket change (well, multiple pockets) and with volunteers. I'm late for a meeting, but Google "natural playground" for more ideas. Butterfly gardens, mazes, and so on.
This would be a great and easy way to get people excited and the kids will have a blast. And, you'll be very, very hip as this is the "latest" thing. :-) Everything old is new again. Enjoy!
bob43
cyngen
