As summer approaches and temperatures rise, the playground might be one of the crucial dangerous places for Bay Area students.
According to UCLA's Luskin Center for Innovation, asphalt in schoolyards can reach 149 F on a hot, sunny day, while a rubber mat can reach 165 F. That's hot enough to cause a third-degree burn. But somewhat shade may also help children cool down loads.
The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that advocates for park creation, is in search of so as to add more greenery to Bay Area schoolyards — a lot of that are bare asphalt spaces with no grass, shade or trees — and the impact to scale back student health and protect public lands, is lobbying for $1 billion from the state legislature to rework these playgrounds.
“If you look at our elementary schools, in many cases you don’t see nature. It’s all about asphalt and asphalt,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, the California director of the Trust for Public Land. “In some of the schools where we have designated green playgrounds, playgrounds have turned into parking spaces for teachers and staff because children weren’t using them.”
Rodriguez said the core feature of a green schoolyard is replacing asphalt with natural materials, but could also include planting more trees and incorporating nature into the space.
“The policies around how we build public schools are still so antiquated,” Rodriguez said. “(It) is very focused on four walls and a roof rather than the campus. We’re really trying to change the way schools are built, designed and renovated.”
The Trust for Public Land partnered with the Oakland Unified School District in 2018 to start converting the district's playgrounds into green spaces. As a part of the Oakland Green Schoolyards program, the nonprofit has redesigned 4 schoolyards on campus – including the Cesar E. Chavez Education Center – to make them safer and more environmentally friendly.
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The district has 14 other schools with planning projects within the works, including Horace Mann and Fruitvale elementary schools, West Oakland Middle School and Coliseum College Prep Academy.
“Hundreds of students in Oakland schools have already been able to play, learn and be closer to nature on Trust for Public Land playgrounds, and we are excited for all students whose schools will receive the same improvements,” said District Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell .
In his budget revision unveiled last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom eliminated the remaining $375 million for the School Facilities Aid Program, which provides funding to high school districts for facility-related repairs and construction.
But the state legislature is currently considering two bills — Sen. Steve Glazer's SB 28 and Rep. Al Muratsuchi's AB 247 — that will place a $14 billion to $15.5 billion bond measure on the November ballot to deal with the To finance the development and modernization of faculty facilities.
The Trust for Public Land's request would come with an allocation of $1 billion within the bond to fund green schoolyards.
Rodriguez said the nonprofit was inspired to advocate for the $1 billion allocation after seeing the success of the 2022-23 CAL FIRE Urban and Community Forestry Green Schoolyards grant program.
As a part of the CAL FIRE grant, the state awarded a complete of $117 million to almost 30 schools and nonprofit organizations to design and construct their very own projects. Awards ranged from $200,000 to $21 million.
Rodriguez said $1 billion could fund projects at nearly 500 high-priority schools. But he acknowledged the danger that voters may not support a multibillion-dollar bond measure.
“I think there are general concerns,” Rodriguez admitted. “Do California voters feel comfortable, ready and willing to make important investments in public infrastructure, like our public schools?”
Rodriguez said including green schoolyards in the ability bond would attract climate-minded voters and increase the likelihood of the bond measure passing.
“More than 100 million people don’t live within a 10-minute walk of a quality park or open space,” he said, but they likely live inside walking distance of a faculty.
“If California does this, it will be the first state in the country to do this really seriously from a state policy perspective,” Rodriguez said. “We can really significantly move the parking justice needle in this country.”
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