A picture of the Willett playground. Thank god no kids are actually playing in that death trap!
Boston.com – October 18, 2006:
Officials at the Willett Elementary School in Attleboro have banned playground tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chasing games over concerns about the risk of injury and liability for the school.
“It’s a time when accidents can happen,” Principal Gaylene Heppe said.
Heppe included the new rule as part of a standardized set of playground rules.
While no district-wide policies banning contact sports at recess appear to have been put in place locally, many principals are making up new rules in an atmosphere reflecting society’s increasingly cautious and litigious nature.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that kids’ lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they’ll never develop on their own,” said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett. “Playing tag is just part of being a kid.”
Kids today are already too coddled and now this. Parents, teachers, administrators and politicians please get a frik’n grip already. I made it through my childhood in the 70’s with no knee pads or helmets. Kids are tougher and smarter than people give them credit for.
I don’t blame the school. I blame the lawyers.
I think Mr.Wayne said it best. “why do we fall bruce? to learn to pick ourselves up”
these people need to take a lesson in risk management, because I’m pretty sure it involves more than removing all risks at all cost.
So it’s ok to play on the jungle gym where more accidents do happen?
How have we become a society that even tollerates this kind nonsencical bull?
“I don’t blame the school. I blame the lawyers.”
Gee, that’s news to me. I thought lawyers had to file lawsuits on behalf of clients, in this case the kids or the parents. Who knew that lawyers could just randomly sue schools for injured children?!
LEAVE the kids alone…
they have to learn something about PLAY, or be stupid the rest of their lives…
Protect them from themselves and what do you get when they grow up???
News story from 2007: Schools require kids to wear protective headgear and padded suits to leave their desks. Going outside for recess will require being packed in balls of Jello. Bids for encasing the schoolyard in balloons and replacing the asphalt with foam rubber will start being accepted next month. No recess until work is completed. All classrooms to be outfitted with trash cans to pee in with seats so both girls AND boys can sit to pee.
It’s all about the money. Kid skins his knee, parents blame it on a rock that was in the way, parents sue the school and loses the suit BUT it would’ve cost the school tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. With schools going through money like water they have to keep the spending in check. So to avoid a possible suit they make these (what seems to us as ridiculous) rules.
It’s all about the money. Kid skins his knee, parents blame it on a rock that was in the way, parents sue the school and loses the suit BUT it would’ve cost the school tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. With schools going through money like water they have to keep the spending in check. So to avoid a possible suit they make these (what seems to us as ridiculous) rules. Not to mention with medical costs so frickin HIGH these days, a broken leg could easily cost a family without insurance $10,000 or more. It’s just too expensive to live like an active human being anymore. And doctors wonder why so many people self-medicate, it’s not the fear of doctors but the cost.
Sorry about the rant at the end there.
Think of it as evolution in action. These kids will grow up to be hypoallergenic pasty couch potatoes, and will eventually be eaten by Morlocks.
Don’t blame the lawyers, blame the legislators and judges. Well most legislators are lawyers, and the judges.. Yeah blame the lawyers.
“These kids will… eventually be eaten by Morlocks”
I think because their parents will eventually forbid them from going outside, they’ll grow into Morlocks. Kids that are allowed to play outside will become the Eloi.
Cripes. I think back to my elementary school in a neighborhood not unlike, say, South Boston. The only things that made our school’s gravel playground different from any other was the fence around it — to keep us in!
I think I still have a couple of scars from that gravel. No one intended us to be beautiful people. But, the dropout rate in our high school was ~ 5%.
11 I think because their parents will eventually forbid them from going outside, they’ll grow into Morlocks. Kids that are allowed to play outside will become the Eloi.
Hmmm, and earlier there was this:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=7610
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
I remember playing on steel monkey bars that were embedded in concrete.
Wimps
Like #15, I remember the same thing.
Now, you have to have like 6 to 8 inches of mulch under playground fixtures, and monkey bars are RARE.
I think it is probably the insurence companies who won’t cover the school district if they allow children to run around.
My parents had an insurance agency. They wrote insurance for the small town we lived in when I was younger. It was in the policy that the police could not have high speed chases, no matter what. after 2 years of what was a really nice commission for my folks, the insurance company dropped the policy stating it was still too risky to provide it.
15. Reminds me of an old Robert Klein stand up routine:
When men were men and car dashboards made of steel. Hell, if you got into an accident in the Plymouth Roasmaster, they’d just hose the brain matter off the dashboard and sell it to the next guy.
Ah, the good old days.
No wonder the kids who spend their summer vacations here in Honduras have much more fun than in the USA.
They get to play ANY type of contact sport and they get wasted not on Pussyesque American beer but on hard liquor such as rum. Plus they get to smoke local cigarettes that are much better than the ones manufactured in the USA.
#15 – Granted, this is in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, not everywhere. Yet.
Comment by BryanP — 10/18/2006 @ 1:08 pm
Thanks for projecting your own politics into the story where none existed previously. Despite the rhetoric and propaganda from the Neanderthal Political Party on the right, Massachusetts is not a communist state AND from the article linked….
Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., banned tag at recess this year. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.
Two blue states and two RED states… These are isolated incidents that have nothing to do with politics, but by all means lets talk about what a bunch of pussies the liberals are.
#16. No kidding. In kindergarden I gave myself a good gash on the monkeybars. No lawsuit.
And yes – don’t blame the lawyers. Lawyers sue on behalf of clients. Blame the parents who would walk into a lawyer’s with little Jimmy’s skinned knee and try to get a year of college tuition or vacation in Europe out of it.
#16 – Nobody is owed a European vacation, but if they are suing for college tuition, then I find it hard to blame them. Just like Jean Val Jean took the loaf of bread, maybe fear and desperartion in the face of the insurmountable cost of higher education is causing parents to commit irrational acts.
Other readers have correctly pointed out the problem is lawyers. I personally believe lawyers pose more of a threat to our freedoms than any terrorist. It’s one reason I never vote for Democrats – the D’s have been completely bought off by trial lawyers.
23. Your reasoning is seriously flawed.
“Other readers have correctly pointed out the problem is lawyers. I personally believe lawyers pose more of a threat to our freedoms than any terrorist.”
Jason, lawyers cannot bring a lawsuit without a client. Furthermore, lawyers cannot contact potential clients regarding a claim (with the exception of class action lawsuits, which are not at issue here.) Thus, the only way the school could be sued was if a kid or parent or guardian called a lawyer and initiated a lawsuit.
Blaming lawyers for doing the work they are paid to do is imply asinine. Blame the parents who file the lawsuits, not the lawyer who’s simply doing his or her job.
#23. And the lawyers who defend against these lawsuits dont have an interest in keeping them going? Plaintiff’s counsel is in it for 33% of the take. Defense counsel has the clock running at a massive hourly rate, or has to justify a contract with an insurance company or employment for a muncipality or school district.
Eveyone gets a taste, so dont pin it all on “the trial lawyers” (ie plaintiff’s firms). Blame in on the people who see life’s hazards as lottery tickets.
“Blame in on the people who see life’s hazards as lottery tickets.”
Good point Doug. I personally think the easiest solution for our lawsuit society is limiting the number of attorneys that can practice. The fewer attorneys there are, the harder it would be for someone looking for an easy goldmine to find an attorney and bring his lawsuit.
I personally think the number of attorneys should be at least cut by half. Probably more.
#27 – Right… Because rights are something we have damn many of right now anyway…
who wants to take bets that the next headline from this school will be “Sudden increase in ADHD cases”
#27, and which half would you disbar? The half the wins or loses?
OK, this may be a little off the point but:
Why keep blaming the lawyers, without blaming the judges?
Why can’t a judge stand up and say “Nope, it was your own dumb fault, no payout”, or “kids will be kids” or whatever.
Granted, I’m not from the U.S., so I may be a little out-of-touch, but it seems your whole system is driving itelf to this point.