Parents in charge of creating a new playground at Fireside School want to build an outdoor community that gives every child – at every level of ability – a place to enjoy.
But for groups like theirs, who are invested in providing the most accessible play areas for students, the options come at a hefty cost, with the Friends of Fireside School Society faced with a possible price tag of more than $400,000 for its high standard of inclusivity.
“As a board, we’ve spent months discussing what our values are for our playground. We have a strong, strong idea of what we want that we all agree on,” said Laura McDonald, president of the Fireside School fundraising organization. “This playground should be for everyone … We’re going to raise the money that that requires.
“We want this playground to put this school on the map.”
Traditionally, playgrounds at new schools in Alberta were not included in the provincial construction plan, so it has been the duty of parents to raise any funds required to build an outdoor play place for students.
But costs have ballooned in recent years, as space-suckers like swings go by the wayside to make room for increasingly popular – and increasingly expensive – inclusive options now available on the market.
Rocky View Schools estimates the average cost to build a playground now sits at between $200,000 and $250,000.
To help offset the rising costs, the provincial government announced a $25 million, four-year program dedicated to helping pay for school playgrounds. The $250,000 grants apply to all new elementary institutions announced between 2014 and 2018, including Fireside School.
While that money will help the society’s bottom line, McDonald said it’s still a far way off from its expected $400,000 to $450,000 bill for the type of inclusive space they envision.
“We already knew that we had our sights set on a really fantastic playground … and we would have a lot of work cut out for us,” said McDonald, adding while her own daughter has vision and hearing impairments and another member of the board has a child in a wheelchair, accessibility is much more to the group than just special needs.
“For us, inclusivity isn’t just about bringing in the kids with mobility issues. Inclusivity is having something for the five year old to do and something for the 12 year old to do … No single piece will be for one child.”
One of the major costs driving up the dollar figure on any inclusive playground is the surface on which the children play. Traditional pea gravel or wood chips can make it difficult for those with mobility issues to access certain portions of the space – so many fully inclusive playgrounds now opt for poured-in-place rubber, which offers smoother ground.
The installation process involves putting down a layer of crushed gravel, then adding a “bouncy” layer of heavy granule rubber with non-toxic poly binder, with a final layer of smaller granule rubber on top. Coloured rubber (which is not recycled) adds yet another strip.
“It’s all hand troweled. It’s very labour intensive – that’s why the cost and everything is there,” said Angela Renaud, director of sales and administration at GPI Outdoor Designs, adding it takes six to seven people about a week to complete the surfacing. “We haven’t figured out how to make it less labour intensive.”
Pat Zelenak, sales manager at Playworks, another Alberta designer and installer of playgrounds, said for a 650-metre playground – the allowed size in RVS for a school of 500 students – the poured-in-place rubber with his company would cost approximately $190,000 for a full install, including proper drainage, edge profiling and more.
While he agrees the surfacing “brings everyone together,” Zelenak said poured-in-place rubber comes with its downsides, including a warranty of about five to seven years.
That means school boards could be on the hook for repairs and replacement if the grounding doesn’t continue to meet CSA standards after just a few years – a cost that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
“We educate every school that we do work with – be prepared down the road,” Zelenak said. “You just have the wear that wears down quicker ... Rubber can tend to take a hard beating and become more compacted. It may lose its resiliency. It’s a beautiful product that’s for sure, but it takes … more work down the road.”
Cochrane’s RancheView School Fundraising Society has been on its journey toward a playground for its new Sunset Ridge space for about 18 months. The group is close to its target of about $110,000, which will trigger different provincial grant opportunities to help reach the goal.
Society president Aaron Gertzen said parents initially hoped to build a fully accessible play area that included rubber surfacing – but have since abandoned the idea due to the high upfront costs, short life cycle issues and information from teachers and maintenance staff about the material.
“We certainly kind of grappled with that same question. Our estimate was around $300,000 to be fully accessible. That would be two or three years of fundraising to get to that point,” said Gertzen, adding because of the current mobility needs of the school’s students, the group opted for a standard gravel for the playground floor.
Choosing a more traditional option brings down their all-in cost to between $200,000 and $225,000 – a figure that Gertzen said is more easily attainable so they can break ground hopefully by next summer.
“I think it’s the number one question everybody asks: ‘Where’s the playground?’” he said. “Time became one of the critical things. The parents that are contributing now will never benefit to the playground that they’re contributing to.”
Gertzen said RancheView isn’t ruling out a possible Phase 2 of its project that could include more accessible upgrades, but for now the main priority is to have a functioning playground for the students as soon as they possibly can.
“One of our drivers is, let’s get something in the ground,” he said.
Last weekend, members of the Friends of Fireside School Society met with four potential contractors and were presented with a number of different accessibility options, including low monkey bars with steps for younger kids, a climbing wall-style slide, musical instruments, ramps, adaptive swings and the poured-in-place rubber surfacing.
McDonald said despite the high cost, the material has previously received an overwhelming majority – 90 per cent – of support from Fireside School families.
“I kind of see it as something that’s just a reality of the situation,” she said. “It’s wildly expensive … but there’s a reason why.”
Sheila Jenkins, grounds co-ordinator for Rocky View Schools, oversees between 35 and 40 playground projects each year – both new construction and refurbishments.
She said RVS is currently piloting a project at an Airdrie school with engineered wood fibre, a different material that meets the requirements of a fully accessible surface.
According to Zelenak, the wood fibre carpet-style flooring costs about 15 per cent less than the rubber material – and comes with a much longer 25-year warranty.
If it passes the proper tests, Jenkins said the engineered fibre could give schools another, more financially accessible, inclusive option to choose from.
“(Playgrounds) are a legacy project and we want them, from our perspective, to be a legacy project as long as we can,” she said. “We really try to recommend things that do stand the test of time.”
Fundraising for the Fireside playground has just begun, with about $2,500 raised so far during a bottle drive earlier this year.
AllState Insurance has come on board as the society’s first official sponsor, donating $25 to the group for every referred quote they receive. A second ongoing fundraiser with Mabel’s Labels is also helping to contribute to the cause.
To kickstart efforts for the upcoming school year, the Friends are hosting a party on Aug. 26 at Mitford Park from 12 to 4 p.m.
The party – which is open to all in Cochrane – will be packed with bouncy castles, face painting, a silent auction and 50/50 draw, as well as representatives from 4 Cats Art Studio and Menchie’s. A vendor market will round out the afternoon.
Entry is by donation and all proceeds will be directed toward the future play space.
McDonald said most importantly, the society will have two potential playground designs – with full cost breakdowns – available to view, so they can gain as much feedback as they can before moving forward and choosing the final elements of their new playground.
“These are big decisions we’re making,” she said, “and we’re not taking any of these decisions lightly.”
