By Stacy Lee
Valentine Elementary students have a new swashbuckling playground to explore.
School officials and PTA members had a ribbon cutting on Tuesday morning for the latest addition to the San Marino school.
“It was a really fun project to be a part of and the most rewarding part as to see it come to fruition,” said Maren Pellant, Kinder Committee member.
She said the committee also tried to accommodate student ideas.
“We wanted a lot of opportunity for the students to climb,” Valentine Elementary Principal Colleen Shields said. “We also wanted it to have slides.”
The planning for the playground started three years ago.
“A kindergarten committee was put together,” said Anna-Marie Grizzell, last year’s PTA president and founding Kinder Playground Committee member. “It was a group of two at the time. That first year we allocated our initial PTA funds toward it.”
She said PTA funds were allocated for a second year and a large committee was created.
“We visited a lot of different playgrounds – both public park playgrounds and school playgrounds,” Shields said.
She said they loved the pirate ship playground at Brookside Park in Pasadena near the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. Shields said they contacted Landscape Structures, who designed that playground structure for Brookside Park. The playground installation at Valentine lasted two weeks.
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