Even school board members admit this is crazy, but they're tired of getting letters from lawyers before the ambulances even arrive:
Andrea Levin is grateful that Broward County schools care about her daughter's safety. But this year when they posted a sign that demanded "no running" on the playground, it seemed like overkill...Posted by kswygert at October 11, 2005 10:47 AMBroward's "Rules of the Playground" signs, bought from an equipment catalogue and displayed at all 137 elementary schools in the district, are just one of several steps taken to cut down on injuries and the lawsuits they inspire. "It's too tight around the equipment to be running," said Safety Director Jerry Graziose, the Broward County official who ordered the signs. "Our job was to try to control it."
How about swings or those hand-pulled merry-go-rounds?
"Nope. They've got moving parts. Moving parts on equipment is the number one cause of injury on the playgrounds."
Teeter-totters?
"Nope. That's moving too."
Sandboxes?
"Well, I have to be careful about animals" turning them into litter boxes.
Cement crawl tubes?
"Vagrants. The longer they are, the higher possibility that a vagrant could stay in them. We have shorter ones now that are made out of plastic or fiberglass"...
"We could do a lot more if we didn't have to watch our back every single second," said Graziose, who has led a playground safety committee for 17 years. "We sometimes get a letter from the attorney before we even get an accident report from the school."