How does an elementary school not have a playground?
“Your guess is as good a mine,” says Emily Levine, EdD., a third-grade teacher at Monroeville’s Dr. Cleveland Steward Jr. Elementary School, where she’s worked for 16 years.
For all that time, the students — there now are about 325 of them, in kindergarten through fourth grade — spent outdoor recess on a patch of grass and a rectangle of blacktop where they could play basketball and other games.
“Our kids were coming home with ripped clothes and holes in their jeans,” says Deb Settlemire, president of the school’s parent teacher organization that’s talked about building a playground for all nine years that she’s been in it. Last year, she and vice president Laura Mimnaugh secured the group’s nonprofit status and then connected with Ms. Levine, who is known for her prowess at raising money.
In 2019, Ms. Levine had led an effort that purchased a $5,500 set of giant blue building blocks and a shed where they could be stored, and they continued to be a hit. But she agreed they weren’t enough for the students. “They need to get out their creative energy.”
That’s what happened with this fall’s playground fundraising effort, which the PTO publicized to current and former families.
No one was more excited than current students, Ms. Levine says. “The kids truly emptied their piggybanks” for classroom coin jar-filling competitions.
The adults also kept reaching out to local businesses. “Kept harassing, to be honest,” says a laughing Ms. Levine, but plenty gave donations and matching funds. All told, they raised about $40,000. Ms. Settlemire’s third grader gave $32.
The adults ordered four main components — a four-person seesaw, a climbing dome, a Spinami and a “Challenger” with slides and steps. The equipment was installed on some of the former grassy area over the school’s spring break, padded with donated mulch, and when the kids returned, they couldn’t wait.
Ms. Levine: “We just let them loose to have fun” starting the last week of April, staggering classes so there wouldn’t be too many kids trying to play on the new toys at one time. On April 28, the school invited everyone up to see it and sit on it and to thank them — businesses, teachers and staff, former students, and the students who did this, what she calls “a total team effort.
“Everyone was engaged in the process,” she says. “Which I think makes it better.”
Ms. Settlemire agrees and calls it “a prime example of a community coming together” to make “a dream come true.”
The playground “brightens the whole campus,” she said, gazing upon it while waiting in the student pickup line. “It just brings joy.”
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter and Instagram @bobbatzjr.
First Published: May 8, 2022, 10:00 a.m.