A thick slab of ice that has formed on a kindergarten school play area has forced some young students to sit out recess at their desks for more than a month — it's not an uncommon situation across the region, but it's one that a Newmarket parent is saying is detrimental to her child’s mental health and well-being.
Rachel Bausch’s daughter attends senior kindergarten at Newmarket’s Notre Dame Catholic Elementary School in the Stonehaven neighbourhood. Since returning to school after the Christmas break, she has only enjoyed the benefits of fresh air, running around and playing outside with her peers once — on Tuesday of this week.
That’s because the school board’s lack of winter maintenance in that outside yard has made the area so unsafe, slippery and hazardous that children are no longer permitted to play there, Bausch said.
“My daughter is almost six years old, and because she’s not allowed to move around, she’s coming home like a holy terror,” Bausch said, of her daughter’s small classroom that finds about 30 young students sitting at desks for most recesses. “And she’s able to verbalize it to me. She says, ‘I didn’t get to move today’, and she starts punching things. It’s causing mental health issues for her.”
After escalating her concerns up the school board chain, including discussions with the school principal, parent council, local trustee and a board superintendent, Bausch said an agreement was struck whereby teachers and early childhood educators would supervise the younger children during twice-a-day recesses in the older children’s area.
It’s not the optimal solution because the older students’ yard that is regularly cleared of snow is not fenced in, unlike the kindergarten area, she said. And, in the interests of the children’s safety, the teachers and early childhood staff must give up their breaks to monitor the outdoor recesses, instead of regular recess staff.
“If the school board had maintained that area, it wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s too late now,” Bausch said. “The ice is so thick out there it won’t melt until mid or late March because that side of the school yard gets no sun.”
In a statement to NewmarketToday, York Catholic board spokesperson Stefan Slovak said kindergarten school yards are fenced off for safety purposes and, during the winter months, custodial staff are not always able to properly remove ice and snow from these spaces.
“Staff are instructed to ensure that a safe path is available from the entrance of the yard to the entrance of the building,” Slovak said. “Notre Dame fulfills this expectation and has recently worked to minimize the amount of ice in its kindergarten school yard through salting. The safety of our students is our top priority and we work to maintain our facilities in order to ensure it.”
Being cooped up for recess and not afforded the chance to play outside and be physically active can negatively affect children’s attention in the classroom, according to the Canadian Public Health Association.
“Time spent during recess has been found to improve grades and standardized test scores, as well as indicators of cognitive skills such as attention, concentration and memory,” the association states. “Even 15 minutes of recess a day can contribute to better classroom behaviour and empathy for peers.”
Bausch was moved to action in early February when she began to notice a difference in her daughter’s demeanour during the week compared to weekends.
“During the school week, she was agitated and aggressive. I could see how not getting outside was affecting her,” she said, adding that some parents she reached out to with her concerns were not even aware their children weren’t getting outside to play.
In a Feb. 10 social media post on a Newmarket Facebook group, Bausch asked other parents if their children were getting outside play time. A flood of comments from parents across York Region showed a mixed bag of winter recess routines.
A volunteer lunch monitor at a York Region school, Anjali Joshi, said “it’s bloody tough to keep that many kids off the ice, out of the knee-deep mud and keep their mittens on when it’s -25C with the windchill. Sometimes (going out for recess) just isn’t feasible. It’s never a decision that gets made lightly. It’s more a matter of what we can manage with the conditions we have.”
A Grade 2 teacher in Oak Ridges said her students have “barely gone outside in about three weeks because the yard has been too icy or it has been too cold outside”.
Others still pointed out that the cost to salt and/or sand entire school playgrounds across the region to combat ice build-up would be prohibitive. One commenter suggested raising these additional funds could be a parent council project.
From Markham to Aurora and points in between, commenters cited icy conditions and a build up of snow as making school yards a mess at this time of year, and it’s a situation that has been happening for years.
For its part, York Region District School Board spokesperson Licinio Miguelo said student safety and getting students outside every day is a priority. As part of its winter maintenance program, kindergarten play areas are regularly salted and sanded. Whether or not to keep students indoors for recess is a decision that's made locally by individual school officials, and often include weather considerations, such as freezing temperatures, rain, snow and freezing rain.
“If that were our house and we didn’t shovel the walkway and the driveway, we would be responsible, there (are) bylaws,” Bausch said. “It’s unacceptable, something needs to be done so the yard is safe to play in.”
The school board has acknowledged that icy kindergarten playgrounds are a regionwide issue, Bausch said. But since the kindergarten areas are fenced, plowing snow creates other hazards, such as snow piles within the area and more ice due to melting and refreezing. In addition, the fencing doesn’t allow snowplows to easily access the area.
Bausch hopes that a more permanent solution can be found so that children don’t end up sitting at their desks for six hours a day, five days a week during the winter months. After all, she said, this is Canada and the ice isn’t going away.
