School eager to renovate playground
Recreational facility offers benefit to the entire community
Work is underway to see that the playground at Meadowfields Community School in Yarmouth is renovated and upgraded to better serve the current needs of the students and community.
The playground was part of the new school construction, opening in 2000.
“That’s about the lifespan of these playgrounds and what makes this a little interesting is that Meadowfields school was a P3 (private-public partnership) so it was privately owned up until just a few years ago,” explained vice-principal Kevin Gobien.
“So, we’ve just sort of inherited this playground and schools are responsible for maintaining and replacing when the time comes. It’s not in any sort of provincial budget … so this is all school and community based (effort) to replace it and hopefully something we can all be proud of.
“Our initial sort of plan was to do it in phases, but with
(the) situation as it is with some grant writing we’re going for it now,” the vice-principal added.
“We have early estimates probably costing in the neighbourhood of $150,000 to $190,000 and that includes resurfacing to make it accessible for anyone. Currently its pea gravel with a wood border around it and that’s not accessible so we’re going to add a compressed wood surface that makes it accessible for anyone,” he said.
Input on the design will come from a broad range of stakeholders.
“We’ll interview students to give us ideas of what they like, so as you can imagine, there are some wild ideas but it’s great to have the student input,” Gobien added. “We’ve enlisted a lot of suggestions through a lot of community groups and our African-Nova Scotian support workers so we’re really trying to tie in the key pieces that make it inclusive and accessible.
“We’re just hoping that it gets going so that hopefully, (it’s done) by next school year. I know it’s a lofty goal but we have a good team behind us in former principals David Sollows and Linda Gallagher, along with our current principal Raquel Thompson and our phys. ed teacher Lori MacLeay, who is heading up the project.”
The school has two playgrounds but is focusing on one at this point.
“After we finalize with the students we’ll hopefully be able to share it with our school, our community and the Yarmouth area because we know it’s widely used,” he said.
“The geography is it’s right on the border of the community of Yarmouth and the municipality so it’s accessible to a lot of people,” the vice-principal continued. “The parking lot doesn’t hurt because the parents can just pull up and drop the kids (off) and supervise them there.
“We have the largest school in our region at just over 420 students; we have after-school programs with Boys and Girls Club Yarmouth; and there’s summer day camps when Yarmouth Recreation uses it. It’s used really 12 months of the year and really at a stage of disrepair now, so it’s urgent,” he added.
“…. We’ve been in Covid for almost two years now so outdoor play and outdoor education have been stressed so it’s almost overstated at this point, but it should be included that the health and well-being and socialization of our kids and community is important.
“There’s a playground in Meteghan and its community run and people travel to go to that. That’s what I would love at Meadowfields is that if we had something right here in town that people could go to,” Gobien continued.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of support. We haven’t even started (going to) our community members and our parents.”