Reed district mom seeks changes to new playgrounds that sideline daughter with disabilities

Reed Elementary School kindergartner Alia Godfrey, who has cerebral palsy, isn’t able to use most elements of the new $600,000 playground structures unveiled last month. (Frank Fennema photo / For The Ark)

Editor’s note — This article won fifth place for best coverage of education in the California News Publishers Association’s 2023 California Journalism Awards.

The Reed Union School District celebrated the long-awaited completion of two new playgrounds on the Reed Elementary School campus in late September with a series of photos posted to the district’s Instagram page, where students were shown climbing up spiraled ladders to access platforms and slides, walking single-file on a low-to-the-ground balance beam, playing on a domed climbing structure and scaling a rope wall.

“The brand new playground at Reed is proving to be a lot of fun for Reed Raccoons,” read the caption, referencing the school’s mascot.

But what pictures don’t show is the experience kindergartner Alia Godfrey has on the playgrounds, according to her mom, Lina. That photo would depict Alia, who has cerebral palsy, on the sidelines watching her peers play because very few of the playgrounds’ features are accessible to her in her wheelchair, Godfrey said.

“She can get near the playground and look at it but not really interact with it,” she said.

Godfrey is calling on the district to make changes to the Reed playgrounds, as well as another brand-new structure at Bel Aire Elementary School, to better provide inclusive play experiences for kids of all abilities — something district officials said they’re receptive to and in the preliminary stages of exploring. However, Godfrey said that while she’s hopeful some changes will come to fruition, she’s disheartened by what she sees as the district’s failure to fully consider the experiences of differently abled students in updating the decades-old structures.

“I was just disappointed to see that they are exclusionary by design,” she said of the playgrounds, adding that while the structures do appear to adhere to federal Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, “in the realm of playgrounds, that doesn’t really do much for certain populations of kids.”

The district spent nearly $600,000 to replace the two structures at Reed Elementary. Those upgrades were required to ensure the equipment could be safely used by the school’s pre-kindergarten students, who joined the campus in 2022 as part of the rollout of California’s new universal pre-kindergarten program.

It decided it would also redo the Bel Aire playground at the same time, with Superintendent Kimberly McGrath noting a safety inspection had determined that playground was not age-appropriate and that its foundation and surfacing needed repair. While the district is still waiting on final invoices, it’s estimating the cost of the Reed project at $595,000; that work was able to be funded with money from the district’s developer-fees fund, which consists of fees levied by the district on residential or commercial development within their boundaries to help pay for the construction or reconstruction of school facilities, and $100,000 in state money.

The Bel Aire project is estimated to cost $604,500, with that money mostly coming from the district’s general fund.

The district originally hoped to have all three structures ready for kids by the first day of school on Aug. 24, but there was a delay in obtaining the pour-in-place surface. The Reed playgrounds opened to students in late September, while the Bel Aire structure was finished last week.

At Reed, one of the playgrounds features a main structure with slides and platforms, surrounded by a children’s version of a fire truck that kids can climb inside. There’s also a small structure with a play window, along with the balance beam and domed climbing structure. The other playground features its own main structure with several slides, as well as monkey bars and several stand-alone climbing structures, including the rope wall, among other elements.

At Bel Aire, the playground features three main independent structures: one with several slides reached by stairs, a rope ladder or an inclined ramp with footholds, and two others that appear to be built for climbing with a focus on geometric shapes, rope ladders and more. The playground also features several benches under large shade canopies.

McGrath said principals at both school sites led playground advisory committees made up of site personnel, parents, board members and other stakeholders to weigh in on the designs of the playgrounds with representatives from Arizona-based Dave Bang Associates, which completed the work. The priority, she said, was creating a space for all students to enjoy while considering the district’s space and budget limitations.

“They would talk through our different needs: what could work in that space, what could not work in the space, things that were age appropriate, things that community and staff thought would be really fun and interesting for a wide variety of students,” she said.

McGrath said that included thinking about how the design could benefit students with a wide range of abilities; for instance, she said, students with hearing issues who have cochlear implants often have a hard time using plastic slides because of the static electricity that builds up. Part of the design at Bel Aire, she pointed out, includes a stainless-steel slide, which doesn’t create the same level of static electricity.

The district also relied on Dave Bang Associates to ensure the structures were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act’s 2010 Standards for Accessible Design, which among other things require there to be an accessible path to the play area from buildings or a parking lot; an accessible path from the edge of the play area to the play equipment; and compliant surfacing on the playground.

However, Godfrey said, there’s a big difference between a playground that is technically ADA compliant and one that is truly inclusive. She said ensuring a playground is ADA compliant is “the lowest bare-minimum” legal requirement that is really more focused on ensuring kids who use mobility devices, like her daughter, can reach the playground, but it doesn’t really consider the ability of those kids to interact with the features there.

Inclusive playgrounds, by contrast, are intentionally designed to promote play among children of differing abilities, including those with mobility issues or those with sensory issues, by incorporating modified equipment that all children can fully participate in using. Common features of inclusive playgrounds include sensory walls, splash pods, rotating structures or bucket swings that all kids can access and ramps and transfer points that allow kids in mobility devices to use all high-level play elements, as well as shaded retreat spaces.

Inclusive playgrounds create “a nurturing and welcome environment for all kids to play together,” Godfrey said. “It sets an example for other kids to include rather than sideline and segregate.”

Godfrey, whose family is new to the Reed district this year, took Alia to check out the nearly complete Reed playgrounds about a week before school started but was disappointed when she saw very few elements her daughter would be able to interact with. She notes Alia can use the play window on one of the Reed playgrounds, and that same playground has a panel with a wheel on it that she can operate.

“It’s something that allows her to get on the playground with other kids, but it’s very token,” Godfrey said. “No one’s like, ‘Mom, let’s go to the playground so we can go to the steering wheels.’”

Most everything else on the playground is not usable for Alia, Godfrey said, pointing out that while she can wheel up to a toy car structure, she cannot get onto the main play structure or the nearby small fire truck in her wheelchair and that she can only wheel under the domed climbing structure.

The other playground on site, Godfrey says, has no play elements that Alia can use, noting she can’t use the main structure in her wheelchair and that the monkey bars are out of her reach. While she can touch part of the rope wall, she can’t interact with it as intended.

Godfrey said while there might not currently be many kids in the Reed district who use mobility devices, she notes it’s impossible to know what the school district’s population will look like in the future.

“It’s actually not that hard to build a playground those kids can use that all the other kids can enjoy, and when you’re redoing your playground in 2023, that is just something that should be accounted for,” she said.

She said she began reaching out to district officials about her concerns in August, including speaking during the public comment at the district’s monthly board meetings. She’s asked the district to consider what could be added to the structures, whether it be ramps or additional lower-level sensory experiences.

“At this point, you can’t really change the playground that is, but you can add a few things,” she said. “They will be a band-aid fix, but at least it will show intent for the district to make it a little better.”

McGrath said the district reached out to Dave Bang Associates to inquire about adding some elements to the three structures, including potentially adding a ramp at one of the Reed structures, building additional panels with musical elements or installing a whirling carousel.

She said the company got back to the district with some options and price quotes Oct. 17 but that she needed to review the quotes and further discuss the possibilities. The district board would then need to determine if the district should move forward with the additions and approve the potential costs, which are not factored into the district’s current fiscal-year budget.

McGrath said she appreciated Godfrey expressing her concern and that the district has responded.

“We have looked at several more additions that could be added to the equipment,” she said, adding that “we don’t want to put in simply a compliant structure, we want to make sure that it’s really great.”

Godfrey, however, said she’s been disappointed with the level of communication from the district, characterizing the overall tone of her conversations with officials as “defensive rather than, ‘Let’s collaborate and work together.’”

She noted that inclusive playgrounds model the type of behavior the Reed district strives to develop in its students, calling playgrounds “a microscopic version of society.”

“If all they see is that kids with mobility devices are just left aside, that’s what they’re going to do,” she said. “If they see those kids are right in the mix, that is the society they’re going to create for their future.”

She also pointed out that the issue with the playgrounds comes as the district appears to be taking steps to better address disabilities bias within its schools, where some 10% of the population requires special-education services, according to a presentation district Director of Student Services Brian Lynch gave to the district board earlier this year.

The district hired an inclusion specialist this year who works directly with special-education students, provides professional development to staff and conducts parent outreach, and last spring Del Mar Middle School applied for and received $30,000 grant from Dedication to Special Education, a Marin nonprofit aiming to improve the quality of special education in Marin County public schools. Godfrey recently joined the board of that organization.

The grant funding will pay for 15 visits in the current school year from Sam Drazin, executive director and founder of the Sacramento nonprofit Changing Perspectives, who will work with students and staff to counter ableism.

Lynch said Drazin will lead professional development for teachers as well as training for paraeducators and special-education aides on how to better support special-needs students in the classroom.

There will also be a focus on developing curriculum for students to help build awareness of neurodiversity, the idea that every person’s brain processes information in a different way, as well as parent education, Lynch said.

He noted that while the grant is specific to Del Mar, if the program continues to be well received, the district would like to expand the partnership with Drazin to its other two campuses.

Lynch said the program builds on the district’s existing commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“What’s great about this is that it does give our teachers a lot of practical tools to put some of that theory work we’ve been doing as an organization over the last few years into action: What does it mean to support these individual students and take into consideration their racial identity, their learning style and consider the spaces we create so they feel welcomed, supported and encouraged to thrive?”

However, Godfrey said, the district’s stated commitment to inclusivity makes it all the more frustrating that the playgrounds were seemingly designed without considering all needs.

“Every presentation I’ve been too that’s been parent-facing says, ‘We’re so into diversity, inclusion and belonging, and every kid belongs here,’ and then you’re not doing that, or you’re not doing that very well or very intentionally,” she said.

Lynch, who previously served as the principal at Del Mar, noted he stepped into the role of student-services director around the same time decisions about the playgrounds were being made and wasn’t a part of those discussions. However, he said, he can “certainly understand” Godfrey’s frustrations.

“I think, as a district, we always want to make sure that we’re understanding our students and their needs and anticipating their needs as they progress through our district,” he said. “Hopefully moving forward we can consider not only the students in front of us but be prepared to offer a program that is prepared for any student and their learning needs.”

Godfrey said she believes her ask of the district at this point is realistic, noting that she understands the playgrounds are built and will be in place for decades to come.

She said her ideal outcome is that the district adds “one truly inclusive piece of movement-related equipment on or near each of the two playgrounds at Reed and on the Bel Aire playground” that would allow her daughter to “meaningfully participate and not just wheel past.”

She said part of the reason she’s been so tenacious about the playground issue is because she wants to help build awareness on ableism where it might be lacking.

She notes she recently spoke at a meeting of the operational steering committee of the Marin County Special Education Local Plan Area, which works with Marin’s school districts and other public agencies to make a full range of special-education services available to students. The operational steering committee is composed of superintendents from six areas in the county who help set policy and direction, among other things.

Godfrey noted that there are more than three-dozen school playgrounds in Marin County, and none of them are inclusive. She said she asked the group to make a commitment that when it comes time to update or change other school playgrounds, those updates would be done to make them “inclusive of all kids so all kids can play.”

“My hope is that I can just be loud enough and draw attention so that other districts won’t make this mistake,” Godfrey said. “And kids will have access to inclusive play sooner rather than later across Marin, if not here.”

Reach Assistant Editor Emily Lavin, The Ark’s education and youth reporter, at 415-944-3841. Support local journalism and SUBSCRIBE NOW for home delivery and access to the digital replica.