By Jennifer Purcell

It is no secret that the West Somerville Neighborhood School has been in desperate need of a new schoolyard for the children to play in for many years now and after seven long years of working on this project, Mayor Ballantyne was proud to announce the opening of the brand-new schoolyard last Tuesday.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony opened with an introduction from Arn Franzen, Senior Project Manager of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development, who invited principal André Pelletier to the stand.

While they had hoped to open this playground much sooner, Pelletier was no less thrilled to see children of all ages run out to play upon its opening. “One of my best memories so far, having been here for a couple of months only, has been how shocked and kid-like the seventh and eighth graders were to fly out to the playground the first time it was opened,” he recalled with a smile. “I was not anticipating that from the oldest kids in the building.”

Although many cherished memories were created on the old playground, every speaker agreed that it was time for them to create a safer and more scenic environment for the children. Judy Pineda-Neufeld noted that the previous schoolyard had essentially been a blacktop with a variety of trip hazards and injury reports. Before they began this process back in 2016, they went around to the classrooms and asked students to recall their least favorite aspects of the playground. Most of these complaints included random nails sticking out, disgusting soccer balls that were continuously getting fished out of the dumpster, and woodchips that were constantly causing splinters. Nowadays, there is a beautiful new turf where the blacktop and woodchips used to be with no sharp objects to be seen, alongside thirty new trees for students and parents to enjoy.

The ceremony was concluded with the official ribbon cutting, which was done by Mayor Ballantyne with the help of four West Somerville Neighborhood School students.