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EDITORIAL: Safe places to play
Play is serious business for children -- it's a critical part of their physical, mental and emotional development -- and they need safe places to exercise their imaginations as well as their bodies.
School playgrounds should be among those places, but in New Orleans, they haven't been accessible to the community. Fortunately, that's changing.
In July, the playground at Dr. Charles Richard Drew Elementary School was opened up to children on a daily basis after the Partnership for an Active Community Environment -- a project of Tulane University's Prevention Research Center -- provided staffing.
Now, the Recovery School District has opened playgrounds at five additional elementary schools, and all six will remain open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays through mid-October.
At that point, Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas plans to provide access to all school recreational facilities -- gyms as well as playgrounds -- through extended-day programs. The state-run school district is soliciting community and faith-based programs to provide supervision and develop programs.
Mr. Vallas calls the plan a "no-brainer," and he's right. Playgrounds are designed for children, and keeping them locked up defeats the purpose. All six of these playgrounds are brand-new, state-of-the-art facilities that were built by the national nonprofit KaBOOM! That group wants to build 100 playgrounds in hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast communities. It's a safe bet that KaBOOM! and the many volunteers who've worked on these projects wanted children to enjoy the playgrounds, not press their noses against the fence.
Mr. Vallas says that schools should be community centers, and more accessible playgrounds should make schools stronger anchors for neighborhoods.
New Orleans City Council President Arnie Fielkow said that city and school officials will work with charter schools and the Orleans Parish School Board to make even more facilities available to the public, and that's a development that they should encourage....
