Quote Originally Posted by hemmjo View Post
When I was teaching, the district insurance company did a "risk assessment" of all of the schools, playgrounds etc. They made the district remove all of the moving type of playground equipment because it was too dangerous. This included swings, teeter totters (seesaw), merry go rounds you pushed, sliding boards etc.

The were replaced by "big toys" made from wood you could climb on, but no slides, etc. The FIRST DAY with-in the first hour, a student fell and broke his arm really badly. After that there were more falls, head bumps, splinters, etc. Those injuries seldom happened with the good "old fashioned" toys.

Now I am retired and even the big toys are gone, only lines painted on the pavement for games, etc.
When I moved in here, the local elementary school in my neighborhood was doing weekly popcorn sales to students, faculty, and parents, to collect money to replace the old playground equipment that they'd had to take out. My youngest was born a few months before we bought the house, and my older kids started school at this school. When they left for other schools, when the youngest two kids were in, 3 & 5th grades, I think, the school was still doing the popcorn sales. The youngest is 24 this month. No playground equipment. And they had taken it out of the other schools in the district by the time I got my teaching license, in 2005. It's maybe a good thing my teaching career only lasted about 3 years.

Bill