School yard turf war?
Mayor Newsom recently announced an initiative to open up to 14 school playgrounds on weekends:
This should be interesting. The announcement was premature. No real plans are in place. Now, with some opposition to the plan springing up in various school communities, it will be that much harder to roll out this pilot.
Stay tuned.
The city and school district have decided to change that, announcing a pilot program Monday that would allow weekend access at up to 14 school playgrounds.The announcement came before the plan was fully in place, and it raised a lot of questions. Even though the program was announced on the grounds of Dianne Feinstein ES, no schools have been chosen for the program. The mayor promises to work with the principals of the selected schools, but there are few details of how that process will work. Now comes an op-ed reaction to the plan coming from a DiFi parent, Colby Zintl, who writes: What's the greatest value of school playgrounds?
The idea sounds simple enough: Open the gates, let kids in, and then shut the gates at the end of the day.
But actually putting that into practice is not so easy.
Last Monday, Mayor Gavin Newsom convened a press conference at Dianne Feinstein Elementary School to announce a "facilities sharing agreement" that opens the San Francisco public schools' playgrounds on weekends and holidays to the general public. This agreement is not well-thought out and comes at the expense of our city schools, as it fails to recognize the vital role the school yards play in our school communities. While the plan claims to create more open space for families to enjoy, the fact is that an unsupervised play yard will compromise its integrity and diminish the value of the school facility as a daily resource for the teachers and the school families.This is an interesting issue. On the one hand it makes no sense to totally lock down some school yard facilities. Many fields, yards, and courts that are locked up now could easily be better utilized and would be a boon to neighborhood kids. On the other hand, Colby and others are right to be skeptical about the assurances that facilities will be protected and yards will remain clean and ready for each school day.
This should be interesting. The announcement was premature. No real plans are in place. Now, with some opposition to the plan springing up in various school communities, it will be that much harder to roll out this pilot.
Stay tuned.
Labels: SFUSD Politics
3 Comments:
It's easy to see the two sides here. The greater community sees an attractive public space, locked up and unavailable. The school community sees the space it works hard to maintain opened to potential vandals and just increased wear and tear.
One commenter on sfgate on this topic suggested that schools REQUIRE parent volunteers to do shifts on weekends keeping watch on their open playgrounds. That was so unclear on the concept on so many levels that you just want to throw up your hands (or throw up).
But there's one point I have to make -- it DID used to be the norm to keep schoolyards open, not all that long ago, and it wasn't universally devastating. Lakeshore's playground didn't even have a fence for the first few years my kids were there -- SFUSD installed one in summer 2000. We used to go there ourselves on weekends back when the playground was open.
Many kids learned to ride bikes on the open playgrounds of their local school. I completely understand parents' concerns, but I had to add that historical perspective.
Well said Caroline, but it used to be that kids could walk to school and not worry about being kidnapped or molested. Time have changed.
Before the school district and city spends money on recreational facilities for the public, they should take care of some basic issues at school.
Such as -
a. replace those gross rusty water fountains and rusty tetanus trap fences (yes, the ones they want to unlock).
b. Adopt several Classrooms by buying supplies so that TEACHERS and PARENTS are not having to constantly do so.
c. Provide healthy snacks to kids instead of EXPECTING parents to do so. Diabetes and childhood obesity is a problem. All of a sudden its more important to provide recreational facilities to the general public.
d. Need I say again, sign up for the Adopt a Classroom program and provide supplies to teachers to they can be Child Centered!!
e. Paint the school, take care of the landscape, so parents don't have to do so.
How about that SI Garcia, dismissing parents concerns as 'it may be a bit inconvenient for the adult' but the plan is 'child centered'.
At my school, parents put in a lot of effort to paint and beautify the school. It certainly wasn't the locals who are most likely to use the facility on the weekend who did so.
Do you think if there is any vandalism, any parent would be foolish enough to volunteer time and money and energy to paint again?
Esp since the SI thinks its only a mere inconvenience.
Right, a child stepping on dog poo or a drug needle... that is REALLY
CHILD centered.
SFUSD can stop telling me as a parent they are broke, and expect me as parent to keep donating. In fact, I may just take my children (yes, that's worth thousands of govt funded dollars to them) out of SFUSD.
Talk about feeling like a fool.
Parent of several youngsters
Yeah, I understand those issues,
"Feel." Just for the record, though, when I say the schoolyards used to be open, I mean seriously not long ago, though -- not back in the way-back innocent era when parents blithely let their kids wander the city, told them to be home by dinner and never gave it a thought.
I used to take my kids to their elementary school, Lakeshore, on weekends to ride scooters in the yard. Note again that Lakeshore didn't have a fence till 2000, and I'd say it was unlocked after that till 3 or 4 years ago. I think that era and this one are pretty much equal in terms of the need to fear crime, vandalism, dog poop etc. So again, that's just a fact to be aware of.
Post a Comment
<< Home