Dr. Christopher Jahnke, principal at Jenkintown Elementary School, announced today that three areas of the Jenkintown Community Playground castle have been identified as unsafe.

On Friday, Dr. Megan O’Brien, Board President, and Dr. Jill Takacs, Superintendent, sent a memo to the district community regarding the current state of the castle.

“Due to the age of the wooden structure and concerns about the integrity of the structure, now is the time to begin planning for the future of the Jenkintown Community Playground,” the memo said.

It continues:

The school district is in the process of getting engineering assessments of the structure to better understand the need for any urgent repairs to ensure it continues to be safe for children (many thanks to Bob Hudson, who was able to quickly provide an initial assessment on Thursday!). The school district will provide funding for the required repairs that are needed immediately. 

Once we have established the short term maintenance plan, we, as a community will need to work together on the long term plan.  To that end, a small group has been formed consisting of school district and borough employees, school board members and parents to better understand the history, current status of the structure, and a possible path forward for how all stakeholders can work together effectively. This group is currently in an information gathering phase, and will share more as we learn more.  

In the future, there will be a tremendous amount of work to do to raise funds, gather input on a potential scope and design, and eventually plan for continued maintenance. No changes will be made to the playground without community involvement, and this effort will not be a school district-led initiative, it will have to be a joint effort among all stakeholders. As we celebrate our 150th anniversary as a school district, we also celebrate the hard work and dedication that resulted in our community playground 22 years ago.  We look forward to providing more information soon about how the program will be governed, how decisions will be made and how those who are interested can get involved.

From Dr. Jahnke’s announcement:

We wanted to give an update on the status of the playground castle.  
 
The safety of all students is our top priority.  To that end, the structural inspector identified three areas of the castle that currently are unsafe.  We have repeatedly closed these sections, only to have someone remove the barriers that were keeping students away from entering the unsafe areas.  We are asking for your assistance in maintaining a safe playground environment, by speaking to your children and asking them to refrain from removing any signs, fencing, or barricades that protect students from the unsafe areas.  
 
Additionally, please do not try to fix any portion of the castle.  We know your intentions are good, but we need to fix the structural integrity of the castle by following the recommendations of the engineer.  Any work that is done outside of the guidelines of the engineer, actually will hamper our efforts to reopen the full castle as soon as possible.  
 
We know the playground is a vital part of our community and we look forward to reopening the castle in a timely manner.  Thank you for your understanding.

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Photos: Jenkintown Playground Project