Yukon gov't agrees to replace play structures removed at Whitehorse school — next year

A Whitehorse school council is pleased that new playground equipment will be installed at the school next year — but also frustrated at the amount of work it took to make it happen.

"Unfortunately, it is too late to get a large structure in this year, but we are happy that it's committed in writing that there will be something to replace it next year," said Chrissy Sands, who's the treasurer for the Hidden Valley Elementary school council.

In early July, the Department of Education removed the school's wooden play structures. According to Sands, the school council was informed just weeks earlier that was going to happen "for safety reasons."

What wasn't clear was whether anything new would be installed anytime soon.

"And then they did go ahead and remove them with no plan," Sands said.

Sands said it was especially puzzling since the department's decision to remove the structures was based on an assessment report done in 2019. She wonders why four years after that report there was still no apparent plan to replace the equipment.

"There is a lot of research into physical activity benefiting kids physically, mentally, in terms of behaviours in the classroom. And it's great to see kids out there playing with their friends and being active," Sands said.

The school council decided to take action. It wrote to the Department of Education, pushing for some kind of plan to replace the equipment, hopefully in time for the upcoming school year.

"It was strange and pretty frustrating. And myself and the other school council members put a lot of volunteer time in over the summer to get this response finally, that they will replace it, next spring," Sands said.

School council buys equipment for this year

At the same time, the school council members decided that students still needed something for the upcoming year. They decided to spend about $20,000 of their raised funds — typically used for things like field trips or extra materials for classrooms — to purchase three pieces of equipment that could be shipped and installed by this fall.

Those pieces include a couple of spinners and a "swircle" climbing apparatus. They're expected to arrive sometime in September, after school has started for the year.

Since then, the Department of Education has also purchased two additional spinners, to be installed by October, and agreed to cover the installation cost for the equipment purchased by the school council. A new climber that was behind the school will also be moved out front, the department has said.

Speaking to CBC News in late July, Trevor Ratcliff, acting superintendent with the department, said he was relatively new in the role and he wasn't sure why the old equipment was removed when it was, several years after the 2019 assessment report.

"That is an excellent question and the answer to it I do not have," he said.

"I'm just getting up to speed and what I would like to see is moving forward and getting the new equipment put into the school ... expediently."

In a follow-up email to CBC News, an Education department spokesperson said her understanding was that in 2019 "the school community wished to keep the equipment for a while longer, and that was considered in their planning discussions."

Sands says she's still baffled by the seeming lack of a replacement plan, four years after a report deemed it necessary to replace the structures.

"We would like to see more planning ahead," she said.

Sands is also disappointed that some of the school council's fundraising dollars, usually used for "extra things," has gone toward what she sees as a simple necessity in any elementary schoolyard.

"That is frustrating, and the amount of advocacy time that went into it is pretty frustrating."