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Date: 3/16/2022
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Upgrading the playground at Tatham School is proving to be anything but child’s play.
Most of the playground structures at the school were installed more than 20 years ago and need to be replaced. New structures are expected to cost more than $50,000.
Principal Katherine Morneau said the school has $55,000 to work with – $50,000 that Mayor William Reichelt will allocate from the town’s capital budget and $5,000 from a grant raised by the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO). Reichelt said the town funds will be managed by the Park and Recreation Department, as they are intended to benefit the town as a whole. He said Tatham stands out among school playgrounds as needing the help.
“Their current playground is older and smaller than the ones that have been replaced at other schools,” said Reichelt.
The mayor added that how much the playground structures will cost will depend on what is selected by students in conjunction with what will fit on the site. He said the new structures will be installed in phases, with smaller equipment first, while the School Committee conducts a feasibility study for future expansion of the Tatham building. Two years ago, the school added a wing of four modular classrooms.
Morneau said while the school, which serves students in grades 1 to 5, is grateful for the support of the funding, “especially the generosity of the mayor,” “it’s very expensive to purchase playground structures.” She added that installing the structures is also costly, and those expenses will also have to fit within the $55,000 budget.
In addition to the funding challenge, Morneau added that there may also be limited availability of the structures themselves. She said that a representative from Miracle Playground, a leading manufacturer of playground equipment, indicated that the company could face delays in delivering structures due to manufacturing issues.
“Our budget and the availability of structures have led us to narrow our focus on choosing playground structure pieces from UPC Parks,” explained Morneau.
While final designs have not been drafted or approved, the school intends to add freestanding pieces that are, in the words of the company, “imaginative, durable” and that are “fun, challenging, and affordable.”
Adrienne Latham, a Tatham parent, is among a group of parents who formed the Tatham Playground Committee. The group has been meeting to strategize and discuss plans for new playground structures at the school. Latham said the school, which has about 265 students, could benefit from new, updated playground structures with increased capacity.
“Planning for new structures is in the very preliminary stages right now and there are a lot of things up in the air at the moment.”
Tatham’s current playground structures, with the exception of a new climber, were installed in 1999 and need to be updated, Morneau said. Another reason to replace the existing structures, she said, is that students need more to do when at recess.
“While we have provided playground balls to use, there’s still a lack of equipment for kids to use while at recess to entertain one grade level at a time, which is approximately 50 students,” said Morneau.
She added that the playground has only two basketball hoops. “Kids love to play basketball, but one of the hoops is near a big pool of water that is caused by drainage issues. So, it’s not in an ideal location.”
Another playground issue is that the asphalt around the school is crumbling. A repaving project is scheduled for this June, but Morneau said the court lines for four square – a popular game that requires little equipment – have faded badly due to the crumbling asphalt.
“The students can’t play it now,” said Morneau. “They love and miss four square.”
Available space for large playground structures, like those recently installed at Fausey School, is “extremely limited,” said Morneau. The school is bounded on its north side by an easement for the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission water main, which prohibits underground installations of any kind within 25 feet, including footings for play structures.
In addition, the north yard of the Laurel Road school is very wet because of poor drainage. On the south side of the school, there’s a slope that abuts Mittineague Park. Morneau said it would be “very costly” to excavate and level the slope.
“We have limited options,” she explained. The only space left is in the front north yard, “and that’s only if we ever have the money to support a playground installation of that magnitude, like at Fausey.”
As a vice principal at the Fausey when it was designing its new playground, Morneau said she knows it was important at that school to design a wheelchair-accessible playground due to student demographics.
“That need differs at Tatham,” she said.