Indoor Playground For Special-Needs Pupils At Van Cortlandtville

CORTLANDT, NY — An indoor playground for special-needs students will be installed in the Van Cortlandtville Elementary School. $25,000 of the funding for the playground came from NYS Senate Bullet Aid.

Van Cortlandtville houses the majority of the district’s elementary school-aged students who require a very small student-to-teacher ratio in response to their special needs.

"We are extremely grateful to Senator Harckham for his efforts to secure funding for a special needs indoor playground at Van Cortlandtville Elementary," Dr. George Stone, Superintendent, Lakeland School District, said in an announcement. "Many families with special needs children move to the Lakeland Central School District for our wide range of exceptional services, and the need for supplies and equipment always challenges our financial resources to provide everything we need. This Bullet Aid grant will provide significantly more equipment and opportunities than we could have provided, and will serve not only the special needs students but the larger entire Van Cort student population with new opportunities to improve physical health."

The school has at least one self-contained class in each grade for children with attention, focus and sensory needs that are best met with movement that involves deep pressure and heavy work to calm and regulate their sensory systems. The indoor playground will allow these students to access this type of movement on a daily basis, regardless of the weather, helping them build strength, modulate their emotional state and maintain focus, as well as have fun with their peers.

The four or more pieces of indoor equipment the school will purchase will include a cargo net climber, monkey bars and circle steppers, officials said. All of the equipment can be folded or raised out of the way so that the gym remains available for night and weekend use by community groups and for the remainder of the student body, which may want to use the gym for basketball and other activities.

"While it may seem like a simple indoor playground to some, it will open up a whole new world of discovery to the children who play on it," George Latimer, Westchester County Executive said in the announcement.

Anna Mandara, Lakeland School District Parent Advocate, said, "I was so happy to hear that the Senator gave Van Cortlandtville this grant for the indoor playground for special needs kids. It is so important for our children to be able to get as much physical activity as possible to build strength and to help them focus. As the mom of a special needs child, I am so grateful for the generous donation. Thank you for not giving up on our kids.”

New York State Senate District 40 includes parts of Northern Westchester (Briarcliff, Buchanan, Cortlandt, Croton-on-Hudson, Lewisboro, Mount Kisco, Mount Pleasant, New Castle, North Salem, Peekskill, Pleasantville, Pound Ridge, Sleepy Hollow, Somers, Yorktown) Putnam (Brewster, Carmel, Patterson, Southeast) and Dutchess (Beekman, Pawling).