Trustees at odds over plans for accessibility

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/04/2019 (1829 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While there was consensus among Seine River trustees that accessibility on school playgrounds is important, not everyone saw eye to eye on Tuesday night as to how to move forward with further action.

Trustee Jessie Cahill challenged the board to turn a commitment to accessible playgrounds into policy, after reviewing a report compiled by administration following a request she made last month to review current accessibility standards.

“I’m saddened to know that the majority of our playgrounds are inaccessible,” she said.

Cahill asked that a new policy be drafted and brought back to the board by the middle of next month in order for them to ensure that new playground structure projects, even ones moving forward this year, would be subject to the new rules.

Trustee Gary Nelson supported Cahill’s idea but suggested that developing a new policy would likely take a few months. Board chair Wendy Bloomfield agreed, suggesting the process shouldn’t be rushed.

“We don’t want to do it wrong. We want to do it right,” she said.

A consultant would need to be hired, Superintendent Mike Borgfjord noted, to ensure that a well-developed plan for accessibility be established. He added that play structures, which are largely funded through fundraising efforts of parent advisory councils, usually start at a cost of around $50,000. He said the financial implications of new requirements would take time to consider too.

Trustee Greg Reid said he was particularly mindful of adding more to the administration’s workload in the midst of the province’s current education review.

Though Cahill presented a motion calling on the administration to research and report back to the board on the cost implications of accessible playgrounds, the idea received no support.

“I can do it in a Google search,” she said, as her motion went down in defeat.

“If you can do it in a Google search, Jessie, it would already be done. That’s not research…I think that’s minimizing it,” replied Reid, who said he had no disagreement with her philosophically on the issue, just that the timing wasn’t right.

A motion presented by Trustee Christine Roskos to move the matter to discussion in the board’s finance and operations committee did receive majority support.