Plum Coulee School cut the ribbon on its new playground equipment Monday evening.
In conjunction with a meet the teacher barbecue designed to give parents the chance to tour the facility and chat with staff, the school celebrated the completion of a project they’ve been working towards for some time now.
“There was an older playground structure here, a wooden structure, that predates my time here, so that means it was very old and very tired,” says principal Mary Eberling-Penner. “And that one actually came from another school secondhand.
“So we’ve been thinking about saving money for a play structure for quite a while, probably six, seven years.”
Through fundraisers and sponsorships, the parent advisory council managed to raise $28,000 for the project. Then a $40,000 grant from the provincial government’s Teachers’ Idea Fund helped make it a reality.
The teachers’ fund grant specifically helped pay for some very special parts of the playground, Eberling-Penner explains.
“Some of our teachers got together and thought about some items of playground equipment that could address children with some special needs or special adaptations they need.”
That includes a couple of outdoor musical instruments kids can play and two specialized spinners.
“We have a number of kids who have occupational therapy needs and one of their recommendations is to be engaged in some fast spinning and turning,” says Eberling-Penner.
One of the spinners is a cooperative one where multiple kids can jump on and make it go. The other is more of a tub design that a physically-disabled child can easily settle into and then be pushed and spun around.
“We tried to do things that were accessible, so even if child has some physical limitations they can still play,” says Eberling-Penner.
The rest of the equipment includes a pair of slides, a climbing bridge, and a giant tic-tac-toe game.
Volunteers helped clear out the old playground this spring and install the new pieces shortly after.
The playground has been seeing heavy use ever since.
“The kids love it,” says Eberling-Penner, thanking the community for making it happen. “This wouldn’t have come to be without the parent advisory council … or without community members coming in to lend or donate equipment and skid steers and gravel trucks. So hats off to the parent advisory council and also the community.”
Guests at the school Monday also got the chance to see the new break room, which was also covered by a teachers’ fund grant, this time to the tune of about $16,000.
“We retrofitted a classroom with some crash mats, some rockers, a couple of different kinds of swings that can be interchanged from the ceiling to, again, meet some of the needs of some of our children who have sensory needs or sometimes just need a break from the classroom if it seems overwhelming,” explains Eberling-Penner, noting there’s a reading corner and an exercise space as well. “So they’ll go there with a buddy or a couple of buddies and an adult and they can spend some time in a different setting.”
