Is My Preschool Playground Actually Safe?

Here is a startling statistic:

Every year, over 200,000 children are injured on playgrounds in America.

That’s a troubling number for parents, but those running child care and preschool programs should also be concerned. Whether you run a large preschool or a small home daycare, the children in your care every day can suffer one of those injuries.

The likelihood is that at some point, one of your toddlers or preschoolers will fall and get hurt on your preschool playground. That’s pretty much inevitable. However, the severity of the injury (and the legal ramifications if the parents were to sue you) can be minimized if you work to keep your child care playground safe and up to code.

In October 1995, the National Program for Playground Safety was created. This program was the first coordinated effort to address playground safety issues, and help prevent many needless injuries to our children. Since then, there have been more and more efforts, research and energy poured into this important topic.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has set forth a set of guidelines, which are now considered best practice for playground safety. Below is a playground safety checklist, especially geared toward child care and preschool playgrounds:

1. Check the safety of your daycare or preschool playground regularly.
2. Ensure that there is at least one foot of soft material under or around your playground equipment. Soft materials include mulch, sand, a specifically designed mat, or shredded tires.
3. This soft ground cover must extend, in all directions, at least 6 feet from any playground equipment.
4. For swing areas, the soft surface should be twice the height of the suspending bar, front and back.
5. Replace or cover all protruding or otherwise unsafe hardware. Look for any sharp points or edges that could harm a child. Check to make sure there are no pinching or crushing hazards that could hurt a child’s fingers.
6. Openings in the daycare playground equipment should be either less than 3.5 inches or greater than 9 inches. This prevents a child getting his or her head stuck.
7. Ensure that there are no tripping hazards, such as rocks, large freestanding toys, concrete footings, plants, or tree stumps.
8. Check all elevated areas and ensure that there are guardrails so that children cannot fall from them. In child care centers and preschools, the guardrail should be higher than 20 inches.
9. Playgrounds should be age appropriate. For a child care or preschool program with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, your daycare and preschool playground should be specifically geared toward children under 5 years old. It’s even better if you can have separate playground for children under 2 years old, and children 2-5 years old. If you also have school-aged students, then your early childhood education playground should be in a separate area from the school-aged kids’ playground.
10. Set the play area up in such a way that a caregiver or preschool teacher can see and supervise all children. AT ALL TIMES.

As of today, only 6 states have fully adopted the CPSC’s guidelines for child care and preschool playgrounds. However, the following 16 States have adopted at least parts of the CPSC guidelines: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Many more have also taken these regulations into consideration when creating their own regulations, which is very promising. States and professional organizations are now encouraging improvements and there is evidence that adopting these guidelines can decrease playground injuries as much as 22%.

Regardless of your State though, playground safety codes are here to help you.

Whether you are a family child care provider, a child care center owner, or a preschool director, the safety of your children should come first. This is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also the right business decision to make. The better you follow child care and preschool playground safety guidelines, the happier you and your students will be!

---

What is CareLuLu?

CareLuLu helps child care and preschool programs fill their openings while helping parents find the perfect early learning environment for their children. Founded by parents with experience in marketing & technology, CareLuLu is an interactive platform that helped thousands of child care providers grow their business (from small homes, to large centers & preschools) .

Click here to list your child care program for free and get enrollments!