Playground boards boost school accessibility

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This article was published 25/11/2022 (901 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At first glance, the newly installed, Plexiglas-clad panels scattered throughout school playgrounds in Hanover School Division may confuse some people. The photos and scant words on the boards, fastened to wooden posts, look like an instruction manual of sorts.

To some, they are.

The double-sided boards, located near play structures at each school, are filled with tiles of photos, each of which describes an action, emotion, or item and the corresponding word.

The Core Boards, as they’re called, are easy to use: a student who needs to communicate but who has difficulty with traditional ways of doing so points to a tile to convey their want or need. Squares indicating ‘inside,’ ‘outside,’ ‘cold,’ or ‘hot’ help to say what can’t be said.

The boards are used by nonverbal or minimally verbal students on the playground when they don’t have the communication devices or placards they use in the classroom handy outside.

The concept of Core Boards is based on Proloquo2go, a computer program widely used by students with communication barriers who have difficulty with ‘core’ vocabulary and ‘fringe’ vocabulary.

“It changed everything,” said Stacey Marcoux, an HSD speech language pathologist.

Core Boards use images licensed from SymbolStyx, a series of photos with words attached help students who cannot express themselves because they live with speech or developmental delays or are simply too overcome with emotion to speak.

HSD has organizational funding to equip students who require communication devices like iPads with the Proloquo2go software. Marcoux said the dynamic system aids in bridging the gap between student and teacher during lessons and leisure time.

“It gives these students the opportunity to have a voice if they need it,” she said.

A 17-year employee of HSD, Marcoux was at the forefront of bringing the communication boards to the division.

Through four years and working with a parent whose child experienced communication difficulties, Macoux slowly put the pieces together on what would become HSD’s Core Boards.

It started with permission from the division to install five boards in a few playgrounds. However, the project stalled due to supply shortages owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The boards were put on the backburner.

One year later, Marcoux applied for a provincial grant that supports accessibility initiatives in the province, netting over $30,000 for the project. HSD was one of 30 recipients and three school divisions to receive funding (neighbouring Border Land School Division received similar funding to install communication boards in 12 playgrounds at their schools).

Working with local companies in the area, 22 Core Boards were installed throughout HSD schools last week. All schools in the division, except Steinbach Regional Secondary School, Green Valley School, and Landmark Collegiate, have at least one board on their playground. Marcoux said the forthcoming elementary school to be built in Steinbach will have at least one board as well.

The playground communication devices are part of a larger initiative within HSD. The division’s 2022 Accessibility Plan Community Report outlines eight priorities within facilities and how the division handles their communications and publications.

Outcomes include online training for all staff on the importance of service and accessibility to be completed by June 2023, while other projects will see installations for deaf students, purchasing portable stage ramps, and constructing accessible paths on schoolgrounds.

For Marcoux and other clinical support staff in the division, the list to improve accessibility is long, but Core Boards cross a huge item off that list.

“Anything that we can do to help someone, whether it’s a child or an adult, that’s what we’re here for,” she said.