INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — The students in Jessica Lewis’ second-grade class at Cler-Mont Elementary School study reading, writing and arithmetic like other second-grade classes across the Kansas City region, but these kids also recently got a fun civics lesson.
“In writing we were doing opinion writing, and we all decided to have our playground fixed,” Izzi Powers said.
Cler-Mont School Park is operated by the city of Independence but sits on Fort Osage School District property directly behind the school.
A broken green slide on the playground next to the school’s playground caused consternation among the kids, so Lewis’ class decided to write a letter to Independence Mayor Rory Rowland asking the city to fix the slide.
“Mrs. Lewis said to write about something that we wanted to fix about the school and we chose the green playground,” Emmy Stewart said.
Each student wrote one line in the four-page letter, which Rowland read aloud at the Dec. 16 Independence City Council meeting.
They noted how the public park has “wonderful green slides,” but it was disappointing that they couldn’t use them.
“We haven’t had the slides for a year and we would really like to enjoy them again,” Lewis’ class wrote. “Slides are our favorite and we use them to get our wiggles out.”
The letter ended with a plea from the students to Rowland to “say ‘yes’ to fix the slide,” but it wasn’t a straightforward process.
“This playground is about 20 years old, so they no longer make parts or pieces for this,” Independence Parks and Recreation Director Morris Heide said. “We had to be a little creative in putting this slide in.”
Heide said his department inspects city-owned playground equipment throughout Independence twice a year and discovered the needed repairs in October during a biannual inspection.
Unable to replace the slide, the department found a metal slide that could be retrofitted on the rest of the playground equipment.
“We actually closed it off at that point, ordered parts in October and we got those about December,” Heide said. “So, it took a while to get some parts that would actually work for this playground.”
The letter from Lewis’ class arrived during the meantime.
“We’d already had parts on order at that point, but the school kids sent the letter in and it was so great to have them interested in civic government and notify us and send the letter,” Heide said.
It added to the urgency that the Independence Parks and Rec staff felt to fix the slide and reopen the playground.
“The letter said they had to get their wiggles out, so that was great,” Heide said. “We don’t want them, especially in wintertime it’s always a challenge getting outside and they have all the pent-up energy young kids have, so we tried to get this repaired as quickly as we could for them.”
The kids appreciated the effort.
“We really like the slides, but they were broken,” Emmy said.
Classmate Kinslee Lance said they were excited for warmer weather to get out and test the new slide.
Heide said another reason they chose a metal slide is because the other slides on the playground equipment are plastic, which can be problematic for kids with a cochlear implant because of static-energy buildup on plastic slides.
The city is trying to add metal slides or roller slides on playground equipment with only plastic slides when possible to ensure that all kids can participate in the fun.
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
