Silver Firs kids ‘champing at the bit’ to try out new playground

The playground is up but the chips aren’t down.

Students at Silver Firs Elementary School south of Everett will have to wait a few days before they can explore the $30,000 worth of new play equipment that took shape over the weekend.

The school’s PTA spent years raising the money, and 40 volunteers helped build the play area.

“It is just so exciting,” Principal Kimberly Gilmore said. “Right now, it’s just real tempting. The kids are rarin’ to go.”

Final work, including spreading wood chips for soft landings, still must take place, Gilmore said.

Parents, too, are eager to see their children try out their big new toys.

“It has taken several years to raise funds to replace the aging playground which is used year round by the community,” said Tina Polintan, the school’s PTA president.

The PTA had enough money to pay for the playground equipment but not for its installation.

Parents stepped up to install it, and Josh O’Neil, president of O’Neil Contracting and Construction, Inc., donated concrete and the mixer needed to complete the project.

All told, about 10,000 pounds of concrete was poured.

O’Neil has a niece and nephew who attend the Silver Firs.

“It just makes the community a better place,” O’Neil said.

On Monday, students were eyeing the monkey bars, tower, trapeze rings and what looks like a big climbing rock, which is actually made of hard plastic.

“They’re champing at the bit,” said Heather Jablinske, a parent who did much of the research into choosing the equipment.

Besides talking with companies, Jablinske did some field tests. She took her three children in kindergarten through sixth grade along with neighborhood kids to schools that had equipment the PTA was thinking of buying.

“I wanted to get equipment that girls and boys would like and young and older kids would like,” she said.

“I wrote down what they played on and what they didn’t play on,” she said. “Some things were like magnets.

School district officials believe the play equipment will be a big hit.

“It’s a real nice piece,” said Gary Jefferis, the district’s maintenance and operations director.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com