Schoolyard scrap: Ottawa school board to pay for replacing play structures

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Ottawa’s largest school board is to start paying to replace deteriorating play structures.

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There are more than 200 existing kindergarten and senior play structures across the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. About one in 10 is reaching the end of its usable life in the next five years, and costs to replace them have skyrocketed.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior play structure cost between $60,000 and $70,000, Daniel Bradley, the OCDSB’s general manager of facilities, told trustees last week. That has since climbed to $125,000.

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Under the new long-term plan, the OCDSB facilities department will fund and manage the replacement program and parent councils won’t be required to fill the gap between city and school board grants with money they raise themselves.

Stephanie Pieri, chair of the W.E. Gowling Public School parent council, learned on Friday that the school would receive a replacement senior play structure next summer.

The parent council has been holding fundraisers ranging from bake sales and dances to selling maple syrup and honey for four years to raise $115,000 for the project, she said. Now that money can be used for other school priorities.

“In some respects, it was like a Christmas present for 450 kids at Gowling. This will create an amazing opportunity for the school community,” Pieri said.

A schoolyard play structure has a lifespan of about 30 years. As play structures approach the end of life, schools are notified as early as possible so parent councils can start fundraising the bolster the school board facilities budget and grants from the city and local organizations.

“The city still provides a $7,500 grant, but the distance between what parent councils can raise versus what the board has to invest was getting too large,” Bradley said.

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The W.E. Gowling parent council faced raising over $300,000 last year after both of its kindergarten and senior play structures needed to be replaced at the same time.

“Play structures are like infrastructure. It’s like the roof leaking. Are you going to ask parents to replace a leaking roof?” Pieri said.

But there are a number of unanswered questions about the board’s plan, which includes “standardizing” play structures as they are replaced.

On one hand, that will provide equity since all schools will be receiving the same thing whether they’re in an affluent neighbourhood or not.

On the other hand, it’s unclear what the standardized play structure will look like and what additional schoolyard amenities parent councils will be able to raise money to buy.

School councils will not be prevented from raising funds for other schoolyard amenities, Bradley told trustees. There are still numerous areas councils can focus their funding efforts, including outdoor classrooms, sandboxes and shade structures.

“We’re just looking at creating a replacement program for existing structures,” Bradley said. “We’re still determining the details of how we’re going to implement that, and what the parent councils can invest when it comes to play structures or playground upgrades.”

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Meanwhile, when it comes to the importance of play in child development, ideas of what constitutes a playground are changing.

Trustee Lynn Scott raised questions about standardizing play structures.

“The sites are different. The local needs may be different. The other question is whether any consideration has been given, rather than having a single play structure, using the school yard for a set of smaller installations,” Scott said.

“I think we are very reliant on the concept of a traditional play structure. I think it’s time we got away from that and started to open the door to more imaginative play.”

When the W.E. Gowling parent council started its play structure fundraising in 2020, it was told it needed to raise $310,000 for both the kindergarten and senior play structure projects: $210,000 for the kindergarten project and $100,000 for the senior project.

The school is in a mixed-income community, where it’s difficult to directly appeal to families for large donations.

At the beginning of the process, the OCDSB was going to kick in $25,000, Pieri said. But, after four years of bake sales and hawking maple syrup, there was only $23,000 in the fund, while the cost of building a play structure proved to be a moving target. After the tendering process for the kindergarten project, the cost had risen to $253,000, or $43,000 higher than expected.

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The board raised its contribution to $80,000, but the project was largely funded by four anonymous donors who gave a total of $174,000, Pieri said.

These donations, along with the school board’s additional commitment, allowed the parent council to redirect the $23,000 it had raised to the senior project, now projected to cost $115,000. The council also received a $10,000 grant from a foundation, $7,500 from the City of Ottawa and $2,000 from the Carlington Community Association.

“There is no way we could have reached our fundraising goals without the generous anonymous donations and grants,” Pieri said.

It’s not unusual for a parent council to spend 10 to 12 years fund-raising to replace a play structure. Many of the details, right down to the mulch used on the ground, must be approved by the board, said Christine Wardle-Moulaison, co-chair of the Ottawa Assembly of School Councils.

The new plan will save school councils a lot of money and time fundraising, she said.

But much about the plan remains unclear, including how money already raised can be spent and where the board is suddenly getting the money to pay for play structures.

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“It’s going to come from another pocket,” Wardle-Moulaison said.

“We’ve been asking and hoping for funding for a long time because we’ve been doing the legwork. Now, all of a sudden, there’s money. We can’t say we’re happy until we see the information that’s coming.”

The OCDSB is preparing a memo for trustees with specifics so parent councils can understand how this will work, Bradley said. The plan is to replace five or six structures annually.

Already, there have been questions about issues such as whether the board will provide a second play structure for schools that have only one, he said.

“I understand there is an urgency to get this out because it is a significant change to how we do business,” Bradley said.

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