Support a Safe Playground
As of January, there have been 232 injuries at the Brown School playground since school started this fall. Scrapes. Head Injuries. 3 children with broken bones. In December, a child was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
WE URGENTLY NEED A SOLUTION.
The Brown School PTA is asking the City and SPS to quickly put in a softer surface this summer. This is not a permanent solution, but rather a simple #brownschoolbandaid to keep our children safe.
Let’s patch our playground, not our kids!
We’re asking the City to simply replace the asphalt with a level and softer surface. Our bandaid solution can be implemented during SUMMER 2022 for much less than the cost of the “paused” full playground renovation project. This is a small price to pay for the safety of our children.
Email the mayor, Katjana Ballantyne, at mayor@somervillema.gov asking her to support our #brownschoolbandaid solution to deliver a safer playground for our kids by Fall 2022.
Click Here for a template letter which you can copy into your email.
FAQs
What do you want?
To simply replace the existing asphalt surface with a level, soft surface in Summer 2022. The larger more complicated questions regarding future renovations should not be an excuse for inaction today.
The City’s 2008-2013 Open Spaces and Recreation Plan rated the schoolyard as “poor.”
The City’s 2016-2023 Open Spaces and Recreation Plan also rated the schoolyard as “poor.”
Twelve years later, nothing has been done to improve it.
What’s the hurry?
There are a number of drivers to the timeline:
- The urgency of the situation and injuries that continue to happen to the kids on a daily basis.
- The overwhelming preference to do a playground renovation during the summer when the weather is warm and the playground is unoccupied.
- City budgetary cycles and requirements to publicly solicit bids mean that we need action now if we want shovels in the ground this summer.
What happened to the old playground design?
Using Community Preservation Act funding, the City started a design process in 2019 and 2020 to renovate both the Brown and the WSNS playgrounds. There were a number of design charrettes held and progress looked imminent. In March 2020, the final public design meeting was cancelled amidst the onset of the COVID pandemic.
Consumed by the response to the crisis, there was understandably no progress during 2020-21. The Brown School kids were temporarily moved to the SHS modular classrooms before returning to their beloved Willow Ave home. There was no word on the playground for almost a year until January 2021 when it was announced that the WSNS playground would proceed while the Brown was “paused.” No timeline was ever given to resume the Brown playground renovation. The city continues to “study the problem.” In the last two years, there has never been an official communication from the City – not even an email – about the status of the project.
The proposed designs and meeting notes were posted here but the city recently removed them from their website stating that the project is indefinitely postponed “until further studies.”
We have archived copies:
Public Meeting Presentation - December 2018
Public Meeting Minutes - December 2018
First Public Meeting Presentation - November 2019
First Public Meeting Minutes - November 2019
Second Public Meeting - scheduled for March 2020
What improvements have they done?
There have been no substantial improvements to the building in this century, at least as far back as digital records go. Other than some surface painting and patching, there have been no improvements to the playground. It was formerly cited that the City needed to reserve the playground as snow emergency parking, but that policy is no longer in practice.
A 2013 ADA report commissioned by the City cited a number of accessibility problems with the building, but it has not resulted in substantial upgrades to the building or playground. See the report for yourself here.
Did the City really tear up the childrens’ garden for an electrical transformer?
Yep. Built and funded by the PTA Garden Committee, the kids put in hundreds of hours maintaining a community garden and it was part of the classroom curriculum for many students. Local organizations used it to introduce the kids to sustainability and environmental topics. They even had an annual harvest. Without telling anyone at the school, the City showed up one day, tore out the children’s garden, poured a concrete slab, and dropped a huge transformer at the front entrance of the school.
We can’t think of a more emblematic example of the improvement process at the Brown.
What about renovating the whole Brown School?
Speculation about the future of the Brown is as old as the Brown School. The City has not committed to a renovation or any other long-term plan. There is no design, no secured funding, and no prioritization against the long list of aging buildings in the City’s portfolio. They might break ground in 3 years, 15 years, or never. There has been a series of engineering studies to assess the mechanical and structural properties of the building and some design sketches. We strongly support an open community engagement process with robust parent input and an eventual renovation of the building. We have been requesting a copy of the Summer ‘21 engineering report and still haven’t received it as of March ‘22.
In the meantime, an entire generation of students will go through the Brown while this process plays out. Design, funding, and community input for a major renovation could take several years, even if the City decided to do it today. And that’s before a shovel is in the ground.
The design process for the Somerville High School began with submission of a Statement of Interest in April 2013. The ribbon cutting was held on December 8, 2021. The ESCS construction project lasted from 2007 until 2013. These are typical timelines for a major renovation project and we do not expect that an old building like Brown will be any easier.
In the meantime, let’s patch the playground!
What has the City said?
In a Dec 2017 letter to the community, Mayor Curtatone and Superintendent Skipper said the following:
“The City has made substantial investments in our schoolyards, and more investment is in the pipeline. Half of Somerville’s schoolyards have been substantially renovated in the last five years. There is a new playground at the John F. Kennedy School, and both the Capuano Early Childhood Center and the East Somerville Community School received new schoolyards as part of the construction of their new school buildings. The redesigned Albert F. Argenziano Schoolyard opened in September 2016 and the adjacent Lincoln Park facility is nearing completion. A new playing field at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School was completed in August 2017, and construction of the upper schoolyard is underway.
..
While we are pleased with this progress, we recognize that three Somerville schoolyards remain below the standard we want for the children of our city, or that you expect as parents: the Benjamin G. Brown School, the Arthur D. Healey School, and the West Somerville Neighborhood School schoolyards.”
..
“We look forward to cutting the ribbons on these projects with you and seeing our students playing in the high quality schoolyards they deserve.”
We agree.
Isn’t getting a few scrapes part of being a kid?
We’re not overly protective parents. We know kids get dinged up and we’ve all been there. This effort is a response to the alarming number of serious injuries. It is not normal for a kid to get 27 stitches falling on the playground. It is not normal for a gate to slice the end of a child’s finger requiring microsurgery. It is not normal to leave school in an ambulance. It is not normal to have roughly 800 nurse visits a year due to playground injuries in a school with about 200 kids.
Let’s fix this.
Who are you?
We are the Brown School PTA Infrastructure Committee. In addition to being Brown School parents, many of us are architects, construction and building experts, professors, and others with considerable experience in building projects. We know what we’re asking for and what’s possible. Some of us have been part of this process for a decade and we’re still waiting for progress.
Who do I contact?
- City Council
- School Committee
- Email the mayor, Katjana Ballantyne, at mayor@somervillema.gov asking her to support our #brownschoolbandaid solution to deliver a safer playground for our kids by Fall 2022.