Parents and kids: Please don’t close playgrounds
They had spent more than three hours at Miraloma Playground on Sunday afternoon, and as Courtney Helland gathered their belongings and told her kids it was time to go, the San Francisco mother knew it would not be easy.
It was the last day the playground would be open for weeks. The stayathome orders issued by San Francisco along with four other Bay Area counties to stem the coronavirus surge closed playgrounds, along with other activities like zoos, starting Monday.
The kids knew. Wolfgang Helland, 4, ran off and hid in some bushes.
“We can’t leave because you can’t find me!” he called out from behind his blue cloth mask with gray stars. Other neighborhood children waved goodbye to the wood and metal play structure as their little feet sank on the sand surface. Another boy hugged the metal corkscrew slide
before heading home.
Already isolated from friends and taking classes via laptop, many Bay Area kids — and their fedup parents — took solace in the fresh air and fun at play structures after San Francisco reopened playgrounds in October.
Their disappearance is not popular. Parents like Helland are unhappy, as are some politicians and even one doctor.
“We’ve only been able to go to playgrounds here in San Francisco for six short weeks. It has been bliss!” said Courtney Helland, 40, who has three young children. “My 4yearold loves to swing. He could do it for hours. Hearing his giggles and squeals as I push him higher and higher is the magical sound of childhood. My heart breaks when I realize he was denied that joy all summer and will be denied again. ... It really feels like the city is shutting down playgrounds just to ‘ do something.’ ”
Even the city’s head of parks thinks it’s an overreach.
“Families from all parts of the city are frustrated and sad,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. “We’ve heard quite a bit.”
As playgrounds reopened in San Francisco on Oct. 14, his department added hand sanitizing stations, reduced capacity, and put up signs to ensure kids and parents were masked and kept proper distance.
“Everybody takes the current health situation quite seriously ... but I think what we continuously have to keep an eye on is the balancing of risk and the overall importance to families, especially highneeds families,” Ginsburg said. “Playgrounds are the most equitable form of recreation we have.”
Over the weekend,
Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and researcher with UCSF, tweeted concern about the nearly complete lockdown that included playgrounds because “we have learned so much about the virus since March!
“Therefore, to institute the same measures as in March, including shutting down of playgrounds ( despite lack of evidence on surface transmission), outdoor dining ( where there has been no data to show that this is unsafe), and prohibiting members of different households to gather outside, is not datadriven,” she wrote in her tweet. “Decisions that are non datadriven, despite the public knowing so much more about the virus as well, will erode trust in public health officials and foster noncompliance with such orders.”
She feared the move could drive people indoors and foster spread.
Last week, a dozen state legislators sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to reconsider the closure of playgrounds in the latest stayathome order, saying they’ve heard from “countless” families on the importance of the resource.
“It is necessary for the mental and physical health of children to have opportunities to expend their physical energy and play,” wrote the lawmakers, including Assembly Members Buffy Wicks, DOakland; Ash Kalra, DSan Jose; and Marc Berman, DPalo Alto. “However, especially in lowerincome communities, families may have little to no outdoor space of their own available. Public playgrounds provide a shared outdoor resource for families without having to travel far, pay entrance fees, or need additional outdoor gear.”
In San Francisco, Decreasing the Distance, a collective of families advocating for effective and equitable solutions for students during the pandemic, said playgrounds were a “vital piece of urban infrastructure, particularly for those who live in tight quarters with little or no outside space.”
As shadows began to creep longer along the red play bridge at Macauley Park in the Tenderloin on Sunday evening, Supervisor Matt Haney spoke to some parents about the impending closure. The park on Larkin Street had been remodeled during the first shutdown and had recently reopened.
“There’s a number of families with kids here and they’re disappointed.
They wanted to bring their kids out one last time and hope that the city reconsiders,” Haney said in a phone call as he stood in the park.
“This entire pandemic has been really hard on kids and families, and it’s crushing to know that tomorrow so many kids will be told they can’t go to the playground,” said Haney, who tweeted Monday that he was introducing a resolution cosponsored by Supervisor Hillary Ronen asking that officials amend the health order to allow playgrounds to remain open.
One Tenderloin resident sent Haney a message over Instagram.
“We don’t have backyards to play in. We don’t have safe streets to ride bikes or play catch. The local playground is the only thing my kid has to help her deal with the sadness and anxiety of going to school through a f— ing computer screen,” the father wrote.
As another father left the playground Sunday night, his son spun and spun and spun on the playground, shouting, “I don’t want to leave!”
The father looked at Haney and shrugged.