Uneven Play

Special Event

Uneven Play: A Community Dinner and Conversation
Friday, February 8, 2019, 5:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m.
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
5900 N. 5th St
Philadelphia, PA 19120
Join parents, local school representatives and WHYY journalists for dinner and discussion. We’ll hear from some of the people working to build healthier schools, including discussion about playground inequities in the Philadelphia school district.

The event will be held in a neighborhood where none of the district schools have playground equipment. Register here.

Active kids are healthy kids. Playgrounds get kids moving.

Two-thirds of Philadelphia’s public elementary schools lack playground equipment. At these schools, kids play on bare, cracked concrete.

In certain neighborhoods, students share their play space with the staff parking lot, weaving between the parked cars to play tag and dribble basketballs. At some schools, open dumpsters sit in plain view — and those trash receptacles become places where children play hide-and-seek at recess.

We are asking why more public school students don’t have safe and clean places to play.

We’re launching a community conversation this winter to understand why some areas have playgrounds and others don’t. Does that matter for kids’ health?

To find out, we need to hear from you. Enter your phone number below and we will send you a text to get the conversation started:

Or you can email Nina Feldman, the reporter working on the story, directly at nfeldman@whyy.org.