Adequate funding for public schools is what’s needed so that no school ever has to have a non accessible playground for handicapped kids. Don’t blame this on accessibility though…this is a public policy problem. Until school boards, education administrators, teachers and legislatures start valuing play, this won’t change.
Transfer systems and vertical access, virtually everyone in the industry on all sides of this issue agrees that transfer systems are ineffective for most kids with mobility impairments. The disagreement about what percentage cannot or choose not to use the transfer system is as high as 95 percent. So that renders the consensus approach, transfer systems, pretty much useless. Transfer systems were negotiated as the preferred method of vertical access in 1995 on the reg-neg committee. But it is clear they don’t work. As an industry, playground manufactures, owners and operators should generate some creative alternatives to transfer systems and ramps. It’s time we admit that transfer systems don’t make playgrounds usable for kids with mobility impairments.
Fourth, in my new role as a consultant instead of a local government administrator, we see an awful lot of playgrounds. One of the things that are clear to me is that playgrounds without ramps need to add more ground level components and fall zones, take up as much, if not more than would a ramp. Of course this is a site-by-site issue and in some sites a ramp would take up more space. But in many it would take less space. We should, as an industry, try to avoid such absolute statements unless there is some objective data to support the statement.
Regarding playground surfacing, it maintenance issue. But if school maintenance staffs are so understaffed that they cannot maintain engineered wood fiber so that it retains its access characteristics, it should not be installed as the surface. Again, this is a reflection of the value placed by the school community on playgrounds. Perhaps a school that acquires and installs compliant loose fill surfaces must also adopt a board resolution directing resources towards greater inspection and maintenance of the playground surface. Or install a rubber surface to allow a day to day approach for the Mobil impaired that wouldn’t constitute a daily maintenance program. And thus create the best access possibly for those impaired. When the cost of maintenance is weighed against the original install cost of the rubber they generally are equal.
But call a spade a spade… some surfaces are not effective and some playgrounds need a ramp.
