Ledgewood/Stone Creek Schools to get playground remodel

UPDATE: Read about the new playground, which should be completed by mid-October. Saying goodbye to the Kids World equipment they built is bittersweet for many in the Roscoe community.

Brett Hruby, Business Administrator for Kinnikinnick School District, reported on Phase 1 plans to renovate the playground at Ledgewood/Stone Creek Schools. He told school board members that it would be totally ADA compatible for kids in wheelchairs, to "get them up in the thick of things." The cost should be just under $30,000, and would include a walking path around the entire set of structures. Ecolab has offered a grant to provide an ADA-compliant swing. Hruby commented that little kids sometimes have a hard time getting onto swings.

The children who first played on the current playground equipment, manufactured by Kids World Play Systems, are nearing 40 years old.  After the community raised funds to buy it, it was mostly assembled by volunteers on weekends in 1990. The project was a cooperative venture between the community and the school district.

Hruby acknowledged the schools could get a second, matching swing set instead of replacing the current one, which is "not going to fall down in the near term." But the whole set-up is old and splintery. One board member drily commented that a new one would "save money on tweezers."

Hruby said they're discussing saving the little towers of the existing playground, as a "nostalgic piece," to plant them on the corners of the new playground to provide much-needed shade. The towers would not be "something you'd be running through" — children might sit with friends underneath the towers.  He said there would be "less to maintain, so we could do a better job of it."

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