‘Failing our kids’: Parents raise money, ask Stanly County school for new, safer playground

STANLY COUNTY, N.C. — Parents at one Stanly County elementary school asked the school district to foot the bill for a new playground. But the district told them they should fundraise for it.

Millingport Elementary School parents told Channel 9’s Gina Esposito that they are worried about the safety of the playground.

“The slide is broke,” one parent, Hannah Lear, said. “It is rusted. I’m very concerned kids are gonna get on it and fall straight through.”

Parents sent photos to Esposito of rusty metal, broken slides, metal poles with missing monkey bars, and caution tape at the playground.

Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over the school, where it could see two aging playgrounds with blue poles jutting out where monkey bars used to be.

Lear is the parent of a rising second grader at the school. She said the district told parents that a new playground would cost $120,000. And that the parents should fundraise for it.

Parents have raised about $30,000 so far, Lear said, but there is no way they will raise enough in time for their students to see the benefits of the fundraising.

“I do not feel it should be on the community or a (Parent-Teacher Organization) to raise money for playground equipment that is no different from desks for children to sit in,” Lear said.

It is not unusual for a Parent-Teacher Organization to support playground updates in a rural district, Stanly County Schools spokesperson told Esposito in an email.

School board member Meghan Almond told Esposito that there isn’t a general fund for the district’s proposed budget.

“In the elementary school years, play is just as important as academics, and if we don’t have both, then, in my opinion, then we’re failing our kids,” she said.

Only one school, Endy Elementary, is getting money to replace a playground that was torn down during an addition, Almond said.

But she told Esposito said has a plan to propose funding for other schools.

“There’s a few playgrounds out on that side of the county that really need attention,” Almond said. “Millingport is just one that just hardly has any equipment. So that is, that is, that is why I feel like it’s a priority.”

She will present her ideas during a school board meeting on Thursday, she said.

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