Hanalei kids get back in swing of things

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on playground

equipment.

By BRANDON SPRAGUE

TGI Asst. Managing

Editor

HANALEI — Hanalei Elementary School is finding itself back in the

swing of things. For nearly a year, kids were not allowed to do the normal kid

things of climbing on jungle gyms, sliding down slides and, yes, swinging on

the swings.

Condemned by the state Department of Education as unsafe,

Hanalei’s playground equipment has languished since last April, wrapped in red

tape, which read, “Danger!”

Hanalei was just one of 179 elementary schools

on island and statewide finding itself in this predicament.

Since there is

no funding assistance yet available from the state to replace the equipment,

individual schools and their PTAs have been struggling to find creative,

low-cost ways to deal with the problem.

At Hanalei the equipment was

recently brought up to DOE’s safety standards, after a parent task force worked

with community volunteers to truck in and install 150 tons of sterile sand to

go under the equipment.

“This is sand and it is compliant sand,” says

Principal Barbara Baker with a touch of relief. She adds that the ground cover

needed to be purified and 12 inches deep to meet safety standards.

It is

also very expensive sand. The PTA allocated $5,000 and had to raise another

$5,000 to buy and install it. Princeville Community Association helped the

cause by donating $1,000, which was matched by private individuals.

PTA

members Karlos DeTreaux and Carrie Souza employed the help of Thronas Trucking

Company, Hurst Excavation, and Marty Bryant Landscaping to give in-kind

donations of their services. The local Lyons Club and other community members

provided some 300 volunteer hours working on the project.

“Thanks to the

generous spirit of the community, our children can enjoy their recesses and

play safely here in the heart of Hanalei,” says Souza.

Still, the lack of

assistance from the state remains a lingering sore point for Souza, DeTreaux

and other parents.

“My question is how can the state take a guideline and

implement it into law that affects the infrastructure of the school with no

compensation or money set aside for the school to fix it?” says DeTreaux.

“We are asking people who are not directly involved to kick in, when the

state should kick in,” adds Souza.

The state kicking in depends a lot on a

bill in the Legislature, which would fund the renovation of condemned

playground equipment.

Introduced by state Rep. Ken Ito (D-Kaneohe), chair

of the House Education Committee, the bill (HB3002) passed its second reading

and was referred Friday to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

But the

funding proposed in the bill has already been slashed from $8 to $3 million.

The intent was for $50,000 to go to all 179 elementary schools for upgrades to

their playgrounds. But with the reduction in the amount, only about 50 schools

will make the grade.

Lester Chuck, facilities director for the DOE, says

that the money in the pot will go to those schools who have already drawn up a

playground equipment plan “addressing what concept and values they trying to

teach and how they plan to address those concepts and values with what type of

equipment.”

Additionally, there is a funding request in the DOE budget of

$400,000 to address wheelchair accessibility to playgrounds in accordance with

the Americans with Disability Act.

This funding, Chuck says, will go to 43

schools, which need to be made ADA accessible right away. Hanalei is not among

the 43, however.

DeTreaux says that the school hasn’t seen a penny from the

state for help with the playgrounds. He says he was told that it would be five

years plus before help was likely to arrive in the form of state funding.

That’s too long for the kids to have to wait, he says.

While the adults

were trying to figure out what to do about playgrounds full of unsafe

equipment, the kids spent the majority of the year sitting in the hall trading

Pokemon cards, says Souza.

School officials bought balls and hula hoops for

the kids to play with, but because there were not enough to go around, it

became a competitive thing, says Souza.

“For my kid, recess was like not

fun anymore,” she says.

Everything seemed OK in the playground

equipment-less year to Principal Baker, until she sensed that something had

been forgotten in the whole process.

“We forgot the look of joy on kids

faces as they are playing on the swings. It was a sad thing.”

DeTreaux and

Souza say that the money raised by the PTA for the playground would have gone

to computers and books.

“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul because it means

we don’t get 10,000 dollars worth of technology this year,” says

DeTreaux.

Souza says that it is ironic that Hanalei School is a recipient

of a $50,000 grant for the state’s Art in Public Places program. Currently, a

work-in-progress stands under a large blue tarp in the front of the

school.

“Why do they pay so much money for that when we can’t have the

playgrounds,” she asks.

“There you have aesthetics —which kids could give

a hoot about— versus function. Swinging is healthy. That’s good for their

blood to their brain.”

But the $10,000 playground project is just the first

step, Baker and PTA members say. The sand will need to be maintained. To this

end, Baker has dipped into her maintenance and repair budget to buy what is

called a lightweight tiller to ‘fluff’ the sand so it doesn’t get too

compacted.

“Nothing has been allocated for playgrounds,” she says, adding

that the money usually goes for landscaping and upkeep. So too with the

maintenance workers who will be needed to do the fluffing on a regular basis

once it starts raining.

“We are trying to think of one step at a time,

right?”

She points to a ramp leading to the playground, the area of the

most probable next step in the merry-go-round ride to compliance.

“We are

not ADA compliant. This is a problem of all schools. The wheelchair gets to the

bottom of the ramp and then what?”

She says that next they will need to

put in a cement pathway for ADA accessibility as well as special equipment for

handicapped children certain percentage of the swings, for example, needs to

be bucket-style swings for paraplegic children to use.

“That is such a huge

expense that I had gone to the Rotary Club to see if they’d kick in a little

bit for the swings but we might just have to take them out,” says Souza.

So

far the final definition on ADA has not been decided upon by the Board of

Education. “I’m not sure how many years that we’ll have to have everything (ADA

compliant) regardless,” says Baker.

While they acknowledge the issue of

safety on the playground, DeTreaux and Souza are still trying to figure out the

DOE’s reasoning for shutting down the equipment across the state without any

alternative plan.

“It was like an overnight thing,” says Souza. “And then

it was wrapped in red tape saying ‘Danger,’ when the day prior the kids were

playing on it.”

“The curious thing is that the state of Hawai’i chose to

adopt these guidelines before they were set into law ahead of every other state

in the country,” says DeTreaux.

“We spend the least amount of money on

education so we are the least prepared to pay for this.”

Part two looks at

the innovative plans that other Kaua’i schools have for their playgrounds and

how playgrounds are changing with the times.