The past several weeks I have talked about the projects that Seminole Schools been involved in this school year. We continue to work very hard to make Seminole Schools your school of choice. The administration and school board continues to move forward with constructing new facilities and maintaining our facilities to a very high degree. The taxpayers of this community have done an outstanding job of supporting Seminole schools, supporting bond issues and now also encouraging the use of federal funds for construction purposes.

We all know the first impression that people see of our schools is the appearance of our buildings. We continue to make that first impression a wow factor. Curb appeal attracts outsiders to our community. One of the first things that people see is the building itself and the playground area where our kids play. And playgrounds are a big part of cub appeal view, especially for the kids. Modern safe playgrounds have become a priority for Seminole Schools.

And when curb appeal is not part of a continuous improvement process, instead of attracting people to our community, it has the opposite result. And that brings us to the purpose and the reasons for addressing playgrounds now. The purpose is that our playgrounds are not in top curb appeal mode, and we want to upgrade them along with outdoor learning spaces, including safety standards and ensuring accessibility for all students.

The reason for addressing playgrounds now is twofold. First, the need to upgrade playground curb appeal is great; and secondly, current millage rate is below the anticipated millage when the series bond were passed for the new high school. Such timing factors are important to schools such as Seminole, in planning ahead and taking into consideration needs of students, families and the community.

My favorite class during my formative years was recess. I remember the days of swings and monkey bars. Today the equipment is so modern and is centered around the needs of the students. We want our students to play on modern equipment and enjoy that time away from the classroom.

We need to restructure our playground so our handicap students have full use of our playgrounds. Seminole Schools has a vision to make Seminole your school choice . We will continue to keep your child’s needs at the forefront.