It’s a jungle out there

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- Screeches and squeals rang out as more than 50 students

hung, swung and slid on the brand-new playground equipment at Wilson

Elementary School on Tuesday.

After four years of school-sponsored jog-a-thons and candy sales to raise

money for the tremendous colorful structure, students finally reaped the

benefits.

“It looks like a little ant farm,” said Wilson Principal Pam Coughlin.

The new jungle gym-like structure has four slides, curving monkey bars, a

straight track ride, a spiral climber and several other funky features.

The indisputable favorite with the fifth-graders was the straight track

ride, where students hang on a bar attached to a wire and pulley system

and fly across -- sort of like James Bond on a mission.

Until now, the children had to play on unidentifiable steel structures

more closely resembling abstract art than playground equipment.

Coughlin described the old equipment as knee-high monkey bars with a

wooden bench underneath and waist-high poles placed sporadically around

the blacktop.

“We didn’t have much fun stuff to play on before,” said 10-year-old Dalia

Vallejo. “It was kind of boring.”

It was the first day since Coughlin arrived at Wilson two years ago that

there wasn’t a line at the swings, she said.

“We had to count to 100 [swings] before,” said Jazmin Rodriguez, a

fifth-grade student. “Now we have to count to 50.”

Anticipation had been building during the last few years as children were

urged to do their best at fund-raising so the school could afford to

build the new playground.

Each year, Coughlin said they managed to tuck away about $6,000 from the

fall candy sale and the spring jog-a-thon.

“The district helped pay for the excavation and layed down the wood

chips,” Coughlin said. “If they hadn’t helped, it would have been a few

more years in coming.”

Coughlin, who was as excited and eager as the children, set up a play

schedule to allow each grade an introductory 20-minute play period prior

to recess Tuesday.

“You have to start at people’s base needs,” she said. “For these kids,

it’s a place to play. So I felt it was really important to get a

playground.”

Extra supervision will be set up for the first few weeks to ensure that

over-excited children don’t hurt themselves or others.

The next projects at Wilson will be a kindergarten playground and adding

more pieces onto the new playground as money is raised, Coughlin said.