Playground Issues in Hawaii

The Perfect Playground Safety Surface for Hawaii's Playgrounds

2005-08-11T20:08:00.000-10:00

If you are planning a playground and have done your homework, you know your safety surfacing decesion is just important as the equipment you select. You may have also learned the bad news that surfacing can absorb as much as half of your playground's entire budget.

When dealing with this information and setting your playground budget, what is important to remember is that over 70% of all serious playground injuries* involve a fall to the surface. It makes sense: In building a playground you are creating a place for children to play off the ground and it is a fact of life that they eventually will fall.

Understanding the pros and cons of the available playground surfaces will no doubt convince you that unlike my catchy title above, that there's no perfect solution when it comes to playground surfacing. However, considering the glaring safety statistics on head injuries related to falls in playgrounds, the best approach is to to pick the best surface for your particular situation and consider it the single most important safety factor in your playground's design.

Ask yourself questions like;

What is our maintenance capacity?
How heavy will the use be?
Is our environment wetter than others?
What is our ongoing budget for replenishment?
Are there cats and rodents in the area?
Is this area prone to insect infestation?
What laws are we governed by?
Who has most the laibility?

Below is some information to base your decesion on and decide which surface is best for you:

Poured in Place Rubber Surface
Safest available surface
Most expensive surfaceMost flexible in design
Requires concrete base
Lowest maintenance Must be installed by licensed contractor

Rubber Tiles
Almost as safe as poured in place
Almost as expensive as poured in place
Can be installed by volunteers
Seams are difficult to maintain
Can be repaired by maintenance staff
Cutting tiles can cause waste

Shredded Rubber
Best fall protection if properly maintained
Not available locally expensive to ship
Won't break down
Can come off on children's hands and feet
Insects don't make homes in it
Requires weekly maintenance

Pea Gravel
Doesn't compact as easy as sand or woodchips
Very hard on play equipment
Readily available
High abuse potential
Drains well
Animals can take a liking to it

Wood Chips
ADA compliant loose fill
Attacts more insects as surfacing ages
Natural look and feel
Difficult to keep weeds out of it
Can be purchased in small denominations
High long term cost

Sand
Cheapest surface available
High maintenance, can require daily attention
Has very good play value
Favorite of animals
Readily available but nobody makes it for playgrounds, it's made for cement.
Can become unsafe almost instantly in a change of weather

*Injuries on Playgrounds

Playground Safety Week in Hawaii April 24 through 28.

2005-04-06T09:35:00.000-10:00

I know what you are thinking... Will the post offices and banks be open?

Let me assure you that you have nothing to worry about. In fact I'd wager that unless you made the virtual journey over here to my Blog, you'd never know that we had such a week in Hawaii. Well don't feel bad, because almost 5 years after it's creation, it is apparent that the document signing below served as nothing but another photo opportunity for Ben Cayetano. Playground Safety Week has been sadly repressed into ambiguity by our past and current state and county administrations.

I am not sure how these things work but I wonder if anyone raised their hand and asked why Playground Safety Week is only five days long? Do we have to stop playing on the weekends? To me, this smacks of the dark side of our local politics. If our politicians designate a special week, it seems to me that it should remain special after the photo OP is over.

Psst! Mufi.. Linda.. Are ya listening?

I can remember back in 1998 when Steve King (one of the national pioneers of playground safety and design) visited Hawaii to speak to the DOE and attend the Hawaii Recreation and Parks Association Conference. I asked him what he thought it would take to shift the public focus to playground safety and compliance with federal standards. "A child is going to have to die on a playground here," he told me without hesitation. "Great" I said, "anything else?" He went on to explain that across the country there's a general apathy towards playground safety in local politics and unless something very dramatic and newsworthy happens, you very rarely see a spike in awareness.

It's been 7 years since Steve broke that news to me and thank goodness that we haven't had a death on a playground in Hawaii. I've observed a few island wide spikes in awareness come and go:

Five years ago, the DOE created quite a buzz when they simultaneously closed 187 playground until they could be accessed for compliance with federal standards. When that assessment showed that we had maybe 10 complaint playgrounds in the entire state, the result was a temporary windfall of local awareness once they closed them all permanently. Everyone was calling their local government representative and giving them an earful. It was a perfect opportunity for someone to stand up and say; "Hey, the current condition of our public playgrounds is a real danger to our children but we only have one chance to fix this in the right way, it is going to take time" Then present a reasonable timeline for correction of the problem. While legislature did their part throwing millions of taxpayer dollars at the problem, there was an understanding that the DOE would undertake the very difficult task of doing a needs accessment involving parents, teachers, and adminstrators. But that lasted for about one year. Due to intense public pressure caused by 187 playgrounds being closed down, the DOE completley abondoned this plan and focused their construction plans were based on what they could do quickly and easily as possible. What the public got was "cheap and fast" and because that lit the path of least resistence and minimal public pressure. This is how they continue to build their playgrounds today.
In 2002, Jeremy Harris decided that he would run for governor based on how many identical cookie-cutter playground designs he could build in our City and County district parks. It turned out that Mr. Harris had a few problems (like already holding an office) and he never got the chance to cash in on this plan. Nobody really noticed the mind boggling pace of the identical replacement playgrounds grind to a virtual halt from around 100 a year to approximately 15 the next and less than 10 this year once their political advancement potential was gone. Mr. Harris wanted to run against Linda Lingle and proudly point out that he improved 150 district park playgrounds, it was already printed in his would be campaign propaganda. But what he did was deliver an everlasting black eye to our island parks. The Harris administration took something that should have taken years of planning and community input and cranked it into mass production to gain political brownie points. Now arguably 150 or so of the most unique and beautiful parks on the planet all have the same identical mass produced playstructure in them. What's worse, three years after the fact, nobody seems to notice or remembers how this came to be.

Do these dramtic spikes of activity mean that we've fixed the problem or properly acknowledged it for that matter? No. It means that a few local and state politicians have astutely learned the political value of the playground. Have we made progress in playground safety awarenesss and design in the past 10 years? I'd say yes but very cautiously so. Playground Safety Week in Hawaii is a good example why I am cautious in my current assessment. I'd like to see Linda, Mufi, and the other mayors in Hawaii acknowledge this week so that the general populace would (even if briefly) consider the safety of the playground near them. I know I am idealist but I would like to see them do it for the right reasons, the safety of our children. But that doesn't get votes and or sway public opinion these days. The reality is that if they don't hear a whole lot of steady whispers from us little people, this just isn't going to happen.

So.. hey little people.. pick up the phone, bust out the pen, or send an email.

Governor Linda Lingle
State Capitol
Executive Chambers
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone: (808) 586-0034
Fax: (808) 586-0006
Email: gov@gov.state.hi.us

Mufi doesn't have a permanent address just yet but a note would surely get to him here..

The Hannemann Committee
98-1277 Ka'ahumanu St., Box 418
Aiea, HI 96701

Phone: 808-597-1488

Playground Issues in Hawaii: Centipedes for Playmates?

2005-04-04T10:29:00.000-10:00

Playground Issues in Hawaii: Centipedes for Playmates?

Purchasing Playground Equipment in Hawaii

2005-04-02T21:05:00.000-10:00

Buying commercial playground equipment could very well be one of the most confusing things you do in your adult life. Think of the of the major purchases you've made; a car, a house, a TV, and so on. How did you arrive at these purchasing decisions? If you are like most people, you probably prepared a smorgasborg of information sources to draw on. You talk to friends that own them, compile consumer product reviews, collect manufacturer specification information and compare product performance. Chances are that what you found was plenty of good information to choose from. Once you did your due diligence, you rightfully felt like you made an informed decision .

Playground equipment is a different animal. There's very little chance that you can find more than a handful of people that have actually purchased commercial or residential playground equipment to compare notes with, what worse is most of the playground equipment product information you are able to find is written for playground equipment installed in climates that are completely different than ours.

So you know going in that it's going to be a difficult choice but don't lose sight of the importance of the task before you! Your decision is going to effect the safety (and fun) of thousands of children over the years. This choice should be considered more critical than your car, TV, or probably anything else you will buy in your lifetime. Here's a list of do's and don'ts to get you started.

DO! Visit new playground installations. Always ask the playground equipment manufacturers rep for a list playground installation for you to look at. The new installations will give you (and your playground testers) an idea of what latest and greatest looks and feels like in person. You'll often be surprised that they product appears a bit differently than the photo than when you are testing it in the field.

DO! Talk story with people as many people as you can. If you are lucky, the person(s) that purchased it might still be around. Be sure to ask about the design process and how they came to their decision. Did the representative provide free site drawings? What about the warranty? Don't forget the person that has been tasked with taking care of the equipment. He or she might have a very different insight on durability and getting replacement parts.

DO! Visit playgrounds older than 5 years. The single best way to measure the quality of materials used is how they behave over time in our tropical climate. We've seen cheaper playground equipment completely disintegrate in just a few years. Be acutely aware that most all playground equipment looks new and shiny for a few years but the quality of the product construction will become more and more apparent as the playground ages. Some manufacturers cut corners by using materials like chain link or use all steel posts that work perfectly well in other climates. In Hawaii it's different. They will look and function okay for a few years but then fail in a few more years. When you are looking at older playgrounds, don't forget to check the welds of the playground equipment and how the hardware (nuts and bolts) are holding up.

DON'T! Make price your only deciding factor. While you cannot ignore your budget, consider your purchase over the lifetime of the playground, which should be 15-20 years. Often local representatives will attempt to "Walmart" you with tactics like luring you in with "sale playgrounds" or a Costco deal that includes "bulk purchase opportunities." The old saying, "you get what you pay for" was never truer when considering playground equipment. You can control the cost of your playground by supplying a well thought out wish list and providing a "not to exceed" budget. Don't get snookered by the sale game and purchasing the components that a playground manufacturer can mass produce the cheapest.

DO! Purchase a playground design that addresses your needs. Because today's equipment is modular in nature, you can have a playground designed to fit both your play space and wish list. Consider phasing your structure if you can't afford "the dream." Many agencies such as the DOE and Honolulu Park and Recreation purchase identical playground structures for ease of maintenance and the low cost of installation. Get into your care and take a very close-up look at the end result of that thinking. I often wonder if they ever tried to explain concept to our children!

DON'T! Forget to watch your children play. Too many times, a playground is purchased based on an adult's experience in the playground. While observing your children play on playground equipment, you will gain more valuable information than any fancy colored brochure or catalog. You'll see how the flow of playground can effect safety when it is heavily used, which component becomes dangerous when two or more children get on it, how some slides encourage children to enter them in a sitting position and how some poorly designed components can be a danger to your child. Most of all be sure to ask your children what they think after they leave the playground or where they want to go play next. Kids are always honest about fun and they will tell you straight up what was fun.

Why are there no swings in Hawaii Playgrounds?

2005-03-29T07:28:00.000-10:00

If you are a parent, teacher, or born before 1985, it's a pretty good bet that your childhood memories of the playground include a swing set. Because these memories are so positive, it is very puzzling for most to see swings disappear from our schools and playgrounds. Is this a state-wide conspiracy against children having fun? No. Welcome to the new economics of the playground.

To understand this, we first must examine what has changed since we played on the playground (Actually it's my hope that you never stopped).

When we were children, nobody was keeping track of how children sustained playground injuries. Although it is a safe bet that you or nobody you know never got seriously hurt on the playground, the new findings show that you're more fortunate than you might think. In the past decade and a half, studies by the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) and other playground safety groups have produced some pretty solid data on playground injury. The results of these studies showed an alarming rate of injury (0ver 200,000 a year) on our public playgrounds. The finding of these studies vary slightly in some areas but uniformly they all showed one glaring statistic, an average of 75% of all injuries in the playground involve a fall to the surface.

Using the results from over a decade of extensive research, the CPSC has put together a set of guidelines for playground design and installation. You can find the complete set of guidelines here if you are interested in seeing them:

http://www.islandrecreation.net/downloads/CPSC_Guidelines.pdf

In these guidelines there is a safety surface requirement that dicates a "use zone" for each type of component that should have a protective safety surface. Because of the nature of swings and the possibilies for misuse (you know, all the things you used to do), they have the largest surfacing requirement of any piece of equipment. A basic summary of the surfacing area required is double the swing beam height in each direction. So if a swing has an 8' high beam it needs 32' of surfacing. That's big, really big!

So returning to today's playground economics; The swing itself is a pretty affordable piece of equipment with the cost ranging between $800.00 to $2500.00. But if a school or park is in compliance with CPSC and the ADA (this will be featured in a seperate post) surfacing requirement, the cost for same swing installed can be as much as $20,000.00!

The understandable reaction to the "new playground economics" is outrage. Before sitting down and writing your city councilperson, please allow me to bring this back into perspective for you. We now know that the playgrounds we grew up on where dangerous irregardless of our own experience. Once viewed as a whole, we learned that children were getting seriously hurt on them at an unacceptable pace. Providing safe environments for our children to play in sometime involves some compromise to our own memories of the playground. But before you start feeling sorry for the kids today, look at some of the playgrounds featured on this page. Playground designers are coming up with new and exciting things that we never dreamed possible as children!

$773.00 for a trash can?

2005-03-19T17:41:00.000-10:00

I thought I would share my letter to the editor of the Star Bulletin in the likely event that it ends up in his $10.00 round file. This was written in response to the linked article below on the City and County spending $773.00 on a trash can.

http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/19/news/index1.html

March 19, 2005

Dear Star Bulletin Editor:

I read your headline story entitled, $773 for a Trash Can and like most who read it, I got angry. However, unlike most people, my anger is NOT directed towards the Harris administration for spending that much money on trash cans.

My company sells and distributes outdoor site furnishings and we were one of the local companies with similar products that were not given an opportunity to bid on this project. Therefore, if anyone should have a problem with a "sole source "contact of this nature, it should be us. However, my ire is focused on the statement made by the City auditor that "$300,000 could have been saved if they shopped around." This leaves readers with the impression that the City could purchase a trash can of equal quality and value for half of the price. That is just not true. It also insinuates that responsible City purchasing is adorning our City with cheapest products we can find. For outdoor site furnishings in our tropical environment, a significantly lower price tag means lower quality, a shorter life span, and a much greater "long term" cost to the taxpayer.

What we need to do is to take a hard look at the procurement laws that Mr. Tanaka is tasked to enforce. City officials are forced to purchase the lowest- priced products with no consideration to quality, product life, service, or warranties. Nationwide, Honolulu is one of the few major cities in the U.S. that does not have a procurement law that encourages evaluation of the quality and price of the products that we buy.

I once participated in a forum with a group of Japanese businessmen and tried to explain Hawaii’s low bid purchasing system to them. I explained that the City and County solicited bids publicly and the prices are listed from low to high and read publicly. The response was, "Oh, knowing who offers the lowest price seems to be a good way to AVOID purchasing the cheapest products!"

Mike McFarlane
Island Recreation

Lucky we live Hawaii!

2005-01-17T10:52:00.000-10:00

The following is an excerpt from the guidelines that New York State Schools uses to determine whether outdoor recess will be held that day.

Factors considered for indoor recess

•Temperature: If it is hovering around freezing, children usually stay inside.
• Wind chill: If it feels too cold, children stay inside.
• Snow, ice and rain: A dry portion of blacktop must be available.
• Sun or clouds: Sometimes a sunny day will get kids outside to play despite chilly temperatures.
• Proper clothing: Students must have adequate coats, scarves, hats and gloves. Making the most of recess

Ala Moana Park Playground Equipment in 1940

2005-01-13T08:41:00.000-10:00

Ala Moana Park Playground Equipment 1940

As a playground designer, one can't help but see the genius in this equipment design. First of all, it was constructed 60-70 years ago and it's a pretty safe bet that a group of local welders put this equipment together. Even if you have never welded anything in your life you can look at this photo and appreciate the work involved. Although I couldn't find any written history on how this was made but I am pretty certain that they fabricated this on site. Can you imagine what they had to do to complete that swing set some 40 feet in the air?

Whoever designed it obviously took the basic elements found in a playground in that era and put his or her own unique signature on it. This was a one of kind playground back in the day and no doubt a landmark destination for children all over the island. I wish I could get a little better look at the climbers towards back. Just looking at shadow on the second one from the back tells me that this was an engineering marvel. I wonder if the designer had a rollercoaster in mind when they designed it?

After considering "what was" and contemplating the spirit and effort that was behind this playground's design and installation, I get a big knot in my throat. It makes me wonder when this spirit dropped off the face of our island and disappeared. This playground was built to give the children of Hawaii a unique place to play in one of the world's most beautiful parks. Today, we have adopted a "strip mall" approach to our public playgrounds in Hawaii. In our Honolulu district parks alone the Harris administration built over 100 identical playgrounds in the past 3 years! The explanation behind this thinking was the maintenance would be easier. When did the focus change from a wonderful unique place for our children play to easy maintenance?

I wish we could travel back in time and find all the people involved with constructing this playground in Ala Moana Park. I wonder how they would handle the news that the playgrounds of the future Honolulu Parks would be 100's clones of each other? I think they would ask the same question that I do every day. Who are we building these playgrounds for?

Counting our Blessings This Holiday Season

2004-12-26T19:02:00.000-10:00

Island Recreation has been blessed with the opportunity to build hundreds of playgrounds in Hawaii and we've never met a child or a group of children that didn't deserve a safe place to play. However, only on a rare occasion will we run across a unique situation like Kuhio Park Terrace. With an under 12 child population greater than the enrollment of any public elementary school in the state, we're pretty certain that Hawaii's largest public housing project is the island's largest group of children without a safe place to play. Currently children play in the housing elevators, streets, and nearby drainage ditches. We consider it an honor to donate our time and services to join with the good spirit and dedication of all Kuhio Park Terrace/ Kuhio Homes residents and all the supporting agencies involved to provide a safe and enriching play environment for these very deserving children.

In November 2004, Island Recreation was privledged to be included in the Kuhio Park Terrace Ground Blessing and Dedication Ceremony.

Irv and Helenann Lauber

We donated the welcome sign to commemorate the day and two great Hawaii citizens:

Welcome
This playground is dedicated to
Helenann and Irving Lauber
who made our community a better
place to raise our Kieki.

Helenann Lauber
Helen Ann's career was at the Parents and Children Together's Family Center that is located on the grounds of KPT/KH and she is much beloved by the community

Irv Lauber
Irv Lauber's career at Aloha United Way spanned 14 years. He was responsible for expanding the agencies role of fundraiser to community builder.

2004-12-25T23:33:00.000-10:00

Kuhio Park Terrace 5-12 Playstructure

Eight Steps to Playground Planning in Hawaii

2004-12-10T07:31:00.000-10:00

I just got an email from Michelle and it inspired me to write this. Michelle is a dedicated mom who has taken on the task of planning a playground project for her child's preschool on Maui. One of the perks of what I do for a living is meeting and working with people like Michelle. I regularly run across people so dedicated to their children (or sometimes not even their own children) that they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to improve the lives of those children.

Extraordinary lengths you say? You said Michelle was planning a playground, right? All I have to do is call up some playground companies and collect a bunch of catalogs and look through them. I'll quickly find something my kids like, I'll place an order, and it will be done. Well, I suppose this it depends on your expectations of the finished project and the depth of your treasure chest. You'll certainly find playground companies in Hawaii that would like to make it that easy. I like to remind people that they are making decisions today that will impact children 15-20 years from now.

The reality is that building a playground is more like a construction project than a trip to the toy store. The end result is going to be an environment in which children are going to play, take risks, and interact... sometimes off the ground. It requires considerable thought and planning to do it correctly.

We like to break this process down into eight steps.

1. Defining your objective
2. Accessing your needs
3. Analyze your site
4. Select your equipment
5. Choose your surface
6. Prepare your plan
7. Install your equipment and surfacing
8. Maintain your playground

For more detail on the eight steps, here's a guide:

http://www.islandrecreation.net/downloads/8StepsPlanning.pdf

You'll find some information about each one of these steps in this blog based on my experience designing and building playgrounds here in Hawaii. I have decided to dedicate an entire post to the great questions that Michelle's committee asked.

Lanikai Elementary School, Lanikai Hawaii

2004-11-28T18:31:00.000-10:00

Lanikai Elementary School - Built in Shade

Centipedes for Playmates?

2004-11-27T11:07:00.000-10:00

There's a lot of obvious precautions we can take to make our island playgrounds safer. Some of these include installing the safe and well designed playground equipment, making certain that our play areas have well trained supervisors, and scheduling regular inspections by certified professionals.

Some precautions are not so obvious and controlling harmful insects is likely one of those that didn't likely make your top ten list. The problem is two fold: Not only are our children more vulnerable to insect bites and stings but they generally born no fear of them. For this reason, the Hawaiian Centipede is the last playmate you want your child to share the playground with.

Hawaiian Centipede

Centipedes are found in dark, moist areas that harbor very small bugs and spiders. A playground with woodchips (or wood fiber) installed as a safety surface is a perfect example such an environment. The wood underneath the surface never dry out completely and entry to the area can come from the surrounding grass, a nearby bush, or tree.

So you do know a child that plays in one of these playgrounds? The first thought when you see small bugs, spiders, and especially centipedes is to extinguish those bad bugs! Call a pest control company! Run down to City Mill and clean out the pest control chemicals! Pour Borax around the border of the playground! These are all usually good first steps, except for one very important detail. Our children play there and none of the standard remedies for insect infestation are safe for a playground. We do not want any these chemicals within miles of where our children play. If bugs have made your playground a home, there's very little you can do and maintain a safe chemical free play area.

While I am not qualified to assist you on declaring a war on centipedes, I can tell you from my personal experience that the best defense is not an offense at all. It's good planning and research of what is available to surface your playground and gaining the understanding that just because a product is sold nationally at great volume and meets the requirements for some federal laws doesn't mean that it is the best choice for you in Hawaii. Our office gets regular phone calls asking for the removal of woodchips from playgrounds and we'll always nicely inquire how the decision was made to install the woodchips in the first place. If the person is still around (and not in a boiling pot somewhere) we mainly hear three reasons.

1. The salesmen told me that the chips will repels bugs or the chips are made of 100% cedar.
2. It was cheaper than other surfacing options.
3. Our playground is subject to state and federal law and we needed to meet ADA requirements.

Number one is simply a question of ethics. Even if the chips were all cedar, any wood will decompose and mix with the soil and other organic materials that will get into our playgrounds. Eventually a a food source for centipedes is created and the longer the wood is there, the better it will become. It is my understanding that all wood chip products are made from all types of scrap lumber and not 100% cedar as is the common claim. I checked the specifications of the most common brand of woodchips sold in Hawaii and the "type" of wood used is suspiciously missing. Buyer beware.
http://www.engineeredwoodfiber.com/playground/specifications_general.html

Number two depends on how you define cost. The initial material and installation costs of woodchips is cheaper than other surfacing products. It is important to remember that only the "installed price" is cheaper and that the maintenance and ongoing replenishment and maintenance costs are very high for woodchips and much lower for other products. So in the life of your playground, you might be surprised what you actually end up paying for a woodchip surface.

Number three is a true legal advantage that woodchips have over other loose fill surfaces such as sand or pea gravel. Like unitary and some loose fill rubber surfaces, woodchips are considered accessible and compliant with current ADA law. I share a common belief among many playground professionals that woodchip surfacing only is able to maintain this rating because of their strong lobby in Washington and the involvement of the major woodchip manufacturers in passing the legislation in the first place. I encourage anyone curious about this to do their own field test. Go out and actually try to navigate a wheelchair through woodchips that have just been installed and you will see what I mean. I think your results will be the same as ours; only in a very compacted (hard) state where the chips are moist or very packed down (remember this is a safety surface designed to protect your child from falls) from heavy use can a wheelchair navigate over a woodchip surface.

Here's a link to the Bishop Museum's website and a little more about centipedes in Hawaii. If you look around on the Internet, you'll find that centipedes can be a very emotional topic for some.

http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/good-bad/centipede-full.html

Here's some good information about non-toxic controlling of centipedes. See if you get chicken skin like I did when you read about the catch and release method!

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/alternatives/factsheets/CENTIPEDE%20CONTROL.pdf

In closing, our children are born with a wonderful but potentially dangerous blind trust. Teach them to "look before they play" and make it your personal responsibility to help them know what to look for.

Ocean Pointe, Ewa Beach Hawaii

2004-11-20T17:07:00.000-10:00

Ocean Pointe Playground

ADA and Hawaii Playgrounds

2004-11-20T10:57:00.000-10:00

I was going to sit down and write a glowing report about all the playgrounds in Hawaii's schools and parks that have been designed with children with special needs in mind. Except I can't. It's not because I can't find the words it is because they don't exist.

All playground that are built in Hawaii today have to comply wtih ADA law and there's plenty of -compliant- playgrounds out there. What is important to understand about the way playground ADA law is written that you can be 100% compliant with ADA law and not provide one functional play component.

From the ADA:

The other requirements for play components are provided to promote general usability, with application to a variety of play components. Additional features will assist in making play components more accessible to more children.

After close examination of the way the people building our public schools and parks in Hawaii, "additional features" have taken a backseat to cost and ease of installation. Everywhere you look you see playground designs with the minimum ground level components installed. These components are generally the lowest cost and usually the least functional. They meet the law but are pretty much useless when it comes to function. If you are interested in knowing more about ADA law, here's a good link:

http://www.access-board.gov/news/playguide.htm

I do have good news to report, however. All is not lost and soon Hawaii will get to see first hand the difference between compliance and function. It is my understanding that Central Maui Park has such a park on the drawing boards right now being designed by Boundless Playgrounds, a design group that specializes is type of park. You can visit them here and see some of their work.

http://www.boundlessplaygrounds.org/.

Until that happens, I can only offer you articles written about other far away places who seem to be building their playrounds with a concience and have realized that play is important to ALL children.

New Playground Design Makes Play More Accessible
November 19, 2004

What do you get when you combine a traditional playground with the concept of universal design? A park that just about any child would be thrilled and able to play in, and possibly one of the most popular parks in Logan, Utah.
The playground, housed in Logan’s Willow West Park, is called Angels’ Landing, and it’s being designed specifically for accessibility by landscape architects from Utah State University’s Center for Persons with Disabilities. The goal: to let children of all abilities play in a place that is able to safely accommodate them.
"The simplest way to explain it is: We don't worry as much about the wheelchair or the device the child is using. We spend more time thinking about the child and what they are able, and would like, to do. It's activity focused, instead of equipment focused," said Keith Christensen, one of the architects working on the project, in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune.
Rather than a traditional playground that focuses on climbing, the architects are creating a place that they say will highlight “exploratory and creative play.” Gone are the jungle gyms and swing sets; in their place are playhouses, musical instruments, buckets, shovels, and other interactive objects – all easily reached and maneuvered by children of any ability. Instead of modifying existing ideas and concepts, this group is starting from scratch on its playground with the ergonomic approach of designing for the users’ abilities.
In the United States, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) requires that all new and altered playgrounds be accessible and usable by people with disabilities. According to the National Center on Accessibility (NCA), the ADA guidelines cover some of the basics regarding the size and scope of playgrounds, but the group also offers its own design recommendations on making a playground truly accessible. Included in the NCA’s suggestions are appropriate seat or entry height for swings and slides, the amount of maneuvering space that should be around a playground component and guidelines regarding accessible routes and surfaces.
But at the Logan park, as well as two others the group has designed, the goal is a little different: "We make sure that everything is accessible and usable. We want it to be a fun place for every child so we aren't segregating children with disabilities to one area,” Christensen said.
But can a playground without swings, slides and all of the other traditional equipment be considered any fun? If public use means anything, then the answer is yes. At a similar playground the group designed, a representative noted that it’s so full of kids having fun “you can hardly get in there.”
Plus there may be another benefit to a more accessible playground – improved safety. Annually, over 200,000 children go to the emergency room as the result of accidents involving playground equipment. More specifically, climbing equipment like jungle gyms account for the greatest percentage of injuries for all children, regardless of age. Coming in a close second for children ages 0 through 4 are slides, and for children between the ages of 5 and 14 are swings.
Sources: Salt Lake Tribune; National Center on Accessibility; The National Program for Playground Safety
-- Jeanie Croasmun

Playground Safety in Canada: Preventative, Proactive, Progressive

2004-11-18T10:24:00.000-10:00

It's my sincere hope that someday we will address playground safety like this in Hawaii. This is a health organization in Canada who has recognized the benefits of injury prevention.

Health unit investing in playground safety
November 17, 2004

By Melanie Béchard

The Northwestern Health Unit has hired a certified playground equipment inspector to look at playgrounds belonging to municipalities, school boards, and day care centres across the region. “We’re really excited about it,” said Paula Sanders, a health promoter in injury prevention with the health unit. “We think it’s a really important project.” The health unit had some funding earmarked for injury reduction in children and spoke to some organizations about how best to put that money to use. “One thing some people in the recreation field identified were playgrounds,” noted Alan Howie, chair of the Ontario Sunset Country Recreation Association as well as manager of community services for Sioux Lookout. “Playgrounds have come under a lot of reviews with CSA [Canadian Standard Association] standards,” he added. “There’s been a lot of discussion over the last number of years, not just in Northwestern Ontario but across the country, about these standards and a number of communities removed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of playgrounds.” Here in Fort Frances, for instance, the town removed all equipment from the Phair Avenue park in July, as well as removed some equipment from the Front Street and Lillie Avenue parks. A swing set at the Legion park was replaced with a newer model compliant with CSA standards. The inspections are a continuation of other initiatives by the health unit to improve playground safety. “The health unit over the last couple of years has assisted communities in funding their staff to go to playground safety training programs and become certified so they can help review and assess current situations and look at future developments in playgrounds,” Howie noted. Injuries from playground equipment is not uncommon in Canada. Safe Kids Canada reports there have been 18 playground deaths across the country since 1982. Seventeen of them were due to strangulation, such as when loose clothing gets caught on equipment, while the other was due to a head fracture. More than 28,500 children are treated annually in emergency departments and hospitals across Canada for playground-related injuries, including fractures, spinal injuries, and concussion. Almost 70 percent of non-fatal playground injuries are caused by falls. Once the decision was made to go ahead with the project, the Northwestern Health Unit contacted area municipalities, school boards, and day care centres to ask if they wanted to participate. Many did and Peter Kells, the certified playground inspector hired by the health unit, is visiting about 50 playgrounds throughout Northwestern Ontario this fall. He was in Fort Frances last month inspecting ground surfaces under the equipment before the ground froze. On Monday morning, he was inspecting the equipment at Robert Moore School here and explained some of the things he looks for. For instance, Kells tests the surface under playground equipment—usually sand—to determine how soft it is. Some materials are better at dissipating the blow from an impact, reducing the likelihood of head injury. Kells said he also checks for how much area is covered with sand around each piece of equipment. He uses plastic gauges to make sure there are no head entrapments, where a child’s head or neck could become caught and cause strangulation. Kells also checks for any pieces that stick out that could puncture the skin or cause internal bleeding, and ensures barriers are at the right height. In his written report, Kells said he uses a hazard rating system to identify high- and low-risk equipment. “It’s not an exact tool. It’s more of a judgment tool. It’s subjective,” he noted. Kells stressed he does not consider himself “the playground police.” He has no authority to enforce the CSA standards. In fact, there is no legislation to enforce them. They are voluntary standards, but ones which insurance companies and the courts often use as a benchmark. “The CSA standard has become the minimum measure,” he said. “But the CSA standard is not just about injury prevention. It’s about striking a balance between injury prevention and play opportunity for children. “At the end of the day, you’re not building playgrounds for lawyers. “I’m not here as playground police. I give information to help organizations make decisions and set priorities,” Kells added. “It’s all about trying to create positive play opportunities for children.” Following his inspections, Kells will submit a written report of his findings to the Northwestern Health Unit. But this won’t necessarily result in widespread changes. “Nobody ever has enough money to do everything they want to do,” he noted. The individual municipalities, school boards, and day care centres will have to decide—based on their programming—which issues they want to address first.

Playground Safety: Can we be too safe?

2004-11-15T11:32:00.000-10:00

When I read the article below, I said to myself, "this is a playground safety advocate's worst nightmare."

Well thought out playground rules are a necessity from both a safety and liability standpoint but they can reach a point of diminishing return in some extreme cases. A playground should be a place where our children feel they have the flexibility to test their physical limitations while learning respect for rules that they must abide by.

The news story below illustrates why we should examine each rule we make on the playground before we incorporate it into our safety plan. It's important that both parents and children understand the merit for each rule and respect the real danger of not following them.

School discipline gone crazy:
girl suspended for doing cartwheels during recess

Girl suspended for doing cartwheels.
Source: http://www.local6.com/news/3913357/detail.html

An 11-year-old girl in West Covina, Calif., was suspended from her school from doing "dangerous" cartwheels and hand stands during lunch time, according to a Local 6 News report.
Deirdre Faegre, who is a Student of the Month at San Jose-Edison Academy in West Covina was dismissed from the school this week after school authorities warned her for the last time to stop doing gymnastic stunts during lunchtime.

Administrators at the school said they were concerned about safety of their students.
They said gymnastics on the playground creates an unsafe situation.

"I thought they were absolutely weird, because I see other kids playing baseball and soccer and I think that's more dangerous than gymnastics," Faegre said.

Deirdre's parents are giving the school's actions a failing grade.
The family says they'll continue to stand by their daughter.
"I don't think they care about the children at all," father Leland Faegre said.
"What sort of a parent or administrator would ever enforce a rule that would proscribe a child from using her arms and her legs?
We have got to fix this mess because we have to let children be children."
Her parents said they will home school Deirdre until they find a more "reasonable" school.

Kamehameha School, Honolulu Hawaii

2004-11-14T14:29:00.000-10:00

Kamehameha Main Campus Playground, Honolulu Hawaii

If you have Quicktime installed on your computer, you can take a virtual tour of this playground here: http://www.ksbe.edu/kstour/kapalama/kapalama01.html
http://www.ksbe.edu/kstour/kapalama/kapalama01.html

Kamehameha School, Honolulu Hawaii

2004-11-03T08:38:00.000-10:00

Kamehameha Elementary Play Area

Are Our Playground Safety Standards Worthwhile?

2004-10-27T13:02:00.000-10:00

I found this book a very interesting read. The Austrailian Playground Standard has been unchanged for 20 years now and there's no regulatory mechanism in existence. This book claims 100,000 injuries a year in a country with a population around the same size of California. Hmmm... maybe these pesky playground standards do make our playgrounds safer.

Slippery slide in playground safety
By Tiy Chung
April 19, 2004

CHILDREN love the playground. It's a place where they can explore, take risks and have fun. But they can also be very dangerous places.

According to a new book on playground safety and equipment, Playgrounds the Australian Way, by Jack Grealy, up to 100,000 children are injured in playgrounds each year.
Grealy, who has designed and built children's playgrounds for the past 30 years, believes the situation in Australian playgrounds is appalling. "Some of the things that you see in playgrounds are enough to make you weep because you know that children must get hurt," Grealy says.
His book is exhaustive in its analysis of playground equipment and rates each in terms of its play value. It also suggests the best design standards and risk-prevention strategies for them.
According to the book, the No.1 cause of most playground injuries comes from falling off equipment. This comes from the poor design of the equipment and the inappropriate surfaces that many playgrounds are built on.

David Eager, of the faculty of engineering at the University of Technology, Sydney, is a member of the Australian standards committee on playgrounds and sits on the board of Kidsafe NSW. Eager says not enough is being done to prevent fall-related injuries. "In my experience there is a really low compliance with the Australian standards for impact attenuation," he says. "If we could get compliance with that standard in playgrounds, the incidence of injuries or admittance to emergency departments would drop significantly. I go around and measure these playgrounds and over 90 per cent are failing."

Eager believes the technology is out there to fix the problem. But many councils just aren't testing the quality of the surfaces on to which children fall.
"You get these fly-by-night undersurfacing companies out to make a quick buck and they've skimped on this and that, and used cheap materials," he says. "You see it all: big concrete slabs, buried pipes, bits of steel and tree roots, and these things are inevitably right where the kids will fall."

Grealy argues that a review of the Australian standard would go a long way to reducing the number of injuries every year. "The Australian standards on playgrounds are 20-odd years old," he says. "They were not particularly good then and they are not particularly good now."
The Australian Standard (No.4422) for falls is "1000 head injury criteria" (HIC) and a "200 times gravity max" (200G). Although that may not mean much to anyone but accident specialists, it is double what it should be.

"Even at playgrounds that do comply with the Australian standard, we're still getting unacceptable, severe injuries," he says. "If a child has a frontal lobe impact, at these current rates they will die." According to Eager, the standard was set up to prevent people dying when they fall but was never intended to stop long bone injuries or the types of injuries that send children to hospital.

There is a big push by Kidsafe and other organisations to lower the standard to half what it is now, which they argue would reduce the injury rate and severity of injuries significantly.
Grealy and Eager also believe that the playground industry should be regulated to stop the use of shoddy equipment and unsafe practices. "The major problem I think with playgrounds is that there is no regulatory body that says 'thou shalt not put kids at unnecessary risk'," Grealy says.
"The playground industry is self-governing and I think a lot of manufacturers are either oblivious to the injuries that their equipment causes or they are indifferent.

"What many suppliers have failed to grasp is innovative designs and colourful creations do not automatically meet the standards that provide opportunites for injury-free play."
Eager says the problem of regulation could be fixed overnight with a bit of lateral thinking.
"All you need to do is say a playground is a place of work and therefore falls under the Occupation, Health and Safety Act, and WorkCover would be involved," he says.
"Everywhere that we have a playground there is somebody who works for either the Department of Education, the local government or some childcare centre and because they're employed it becomes a place of work."

Grealy says that designing playgrounds is all about risk management.
For example, just as you would not leave a pot of hot water at the front of a stove where a child can pull it down, so playground equipment should be designed with common sense in mind.
"You would say on the face of it that playground standards in Australia look pretty good," Grealy says. "But when you look at the statistics, with 100,000 kids injured every year, and you then look at the costs involved in treating injured children, there's a hell of a lot of money involved. "I don't see any point in hurting kids unnecessarily."

National PTA should be ashamed

2004-10-25T09:58:00.000-10:00

Oh my goodness gracious.

I find the comments below from Debbie Gatti of the North Rocklin PTA absolutely dumbfounding. How can the National PTA be opposed to local parent teacher associations assisting in improving our school's playgrounds? Sure schools need funding for books and teachers but this postition discounts the true value of free time on the playground and hiding behind the "L" word is as inexcusable as it is irresponsible.

The early lessons learned on the playground are as valuable as any a child will learn. Often our children's first experiences in learning to share, cooperating with others, socializing with peers, stress-coping, and problem-solving all occur on the playground. I challenge anyone reading this to consider their everyday life if the other adults that had not learned these life skills early and well.

We are raising the most obese generation in the history of the world and our schools are the last place where physical activity is mandated. How a national organization begin to discard the true value of physical benifits of the playground to our children? Perhaps a round padded room with TV's and Gameboys would be a better use of our children's recess?

Citing liability is another way of not having to explain your agenda. Here in Hawaii just the mention of the "L" word generates unfounded panic. Before acceptance of impending doom I suggest that we check the validity of the risk by asking a professional pointed questions such as, "what exactly is our liability in doing this?" In the case of a playground, if it is constructed within federal guidelines and laws, maintained and supervised correctly, there's next to zero laibility for the local PTA. To our knowledge there has never been a suit filed against a PTA in Hawaii for assisting with a playground.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/102504/b03w25edplayground.html

By MERYL HYMAN HARRIS THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: October 25, 2004)

Playgrounds appear to be as irresistible to adults as they are to children.

Even though the National PTA advises against it, some local parent teacher associations continue to give playground equipment to local schools.

"Over the years, probably each one of the elementary schools have used PTA funds for playground equipment," said Debbie Gatti, North Rockland PTA Council president. "I can't tell my PTA units not to do it.

"The PTA is supposed to enhance children's lives at school. Children spend a lot of time on the playground, where things get old," she said. "Where is that money going to come from? Some from state grants and some from PTA because the district doesn't have enough money to put into playgrounds. I'd rather the district spent the money on books and teachers. I don't think it's realistic on the part of National PTA to say don't do that."

The national group is attempting to dissuade parents from buying equipment for reasons it considers entirely realistic.

National PTA does not recommend the purchase of equipment chiefly because of insurance liability and maintenance issues, said spokeswoman Laura Battle. "PTA efforts are better spent educating the community about funding for education," she said.

Nonsense, said Gatti. "There are liability issues with lots of things. I don't think you can live your life worrying about that. We have ice cream socials sponsored by PTA, Halloween parties, and there are always liability issues. Knock wood, we haven't had anybody sue, but you have to decide what's important, and the kids have to have a safe place to play.''

A leading advocate of safe playgrounds agrees that the National PTA has gone too far.

"I think that's a terrible decision on their part because the playground companies have improved the safety of equipment, particularly in the past 10 years," said Donna Thompson, director of the National Program for Playground Safety.

Thompson and her group were among those who over the past decade lobbied successfully for stringent standards of equipment to stem the tide of accidents. It is estimated that some 200,000 children are sent to emergency rooms every year because of playground accidents at a cost of more than $1 billion. Home playgrounds, such groups caution, are often more dangerous than public ones.

Thompson's group does spot checks of public playgrounds throughout the United States, grading each state on such criteria as supervision, age-appropriate design, maintenance and surfacing. From 2000 to 2004, New York rose from a C+ to a solid B.

It is with those current safety standards in mind that local PTAs purchase equipment, said Gatti. "The PTA sits down with the principal and it's a collaborative thing," she said. "They think about what will be the safest thing the children will enjoy."

2004-10-24T09:36:00.000-10:00

Fitness Area
Kapolei Knolls Private Park

Hawaii Public Schools Playground Safety Program

2004-10-20T09:15:00.000-10:00

Hawaii Public Schools Safety Program

This issue in the below article applies to Hawaii as well. To my knowledge, the DOE has no system-wide playground safety or playground supervision plan in place. Individual schools are left to put together a plan on their own. We can't expect every school to have a playground expert. It's my opinion that the DOE should provide a uniform and manditory framework for the schools based on local and national safety data and then allow the schools to submit for modification to suit their individual needs.

______________________________

State should set standards for school playground safety

The issue: Playground safety
Our opinion: The state should set sensible, mandatory guidelines for schools to follow.

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, September 28, 2004 12:23 AM CDT
At many elementary schools, playgrounds are getting a much-needed makeover. For safety's sake, familiar equipment such as teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds, monkey bars and large slides are disappearing.

The Portage Township school district, for instance, is planning significant playground improvements next year at seven of the district's eight elementary schools.Many other districts have already redesigned the playgrounds to make them safer, replacing everything from the equipment to the pea gravel underneath. The ground is now covered with wood chips, which are softer to cushion falls and reduce injuries.

Liability concerns are driving the changes.

The aim is to reduce the number of injuries. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says more than 200,000 children are treated each year at emergency rooms for injuries associated with playground equipment. Most of the injuries involve falls.

The federal agency offers a free Handbook for Public Playground Safety, readily available on the Internet, with tips on playground design.

Most schools use the agency's voluntary guidelines and the directives of insurance companies.

The Indiana Department of Education doesn't have any requirements about playground design. It should.

The state also should set mandatory standards for playground supervision to make sure the right number of teachers, aides or adult volunteers is on the playground to respond to the inevitable injuries or disturbances.

It is important for children to be encouraged to be physically active, but they must do so in a safe environment.

Your opinion, please

Should the state set playground design and supervision standards for schools?

Kamehameha Main Campus

2004-10-20T06:52:00.000-10:00

For a 360 degree view of this playground go to:

http://www.ksbe.edu/kstour/kapalama/kapalama01.html