A new playground is an exciting milestone for an elementary school, as playgrounds hold a lot of laughter, friendship, and imagination for younger students. On Sept. 6, community members, faculty, and the students at St. Thomas More Catholic Academy in Southeast Washington, D.C., braved the city’s heat wave to join Cardinal Wilton Gregory in a blessing and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new playground there.
Dr. Camille Brown Privette, president of the Consortium of Catholic Academies of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, gave opening remarks and introduced the cardinal.
“This has been a long time coming, but it's so joyful to see the children climbing (the playground),” Privette told the Catholic Standard.
She further shared the exciting plans for the entire student body, which currently stands at 170 students and continues to grow. Privette added that their goal is to provide the entire parking lot area as a play space, noting that they are in the process of adding additional play structures to enhance the experience.
A big red ribbon was knotted into a bow at the entrance of the bright yellow and orange play space – between the xylophone and a fence with stars, circles, and other colorful and transparent plastic shapes that created colorful shadows like stained glass.
Cardinal Gregory addressed the students directly.
“This playground is really designed and planned and built for you,” Cardinal Gregory said. “Now, I know we have some adults who are looking at it, but the kids go first.”
He then thanked the Consortium of Catholic Academies’ Board of Directors.
“Blessing a new playground is a happy moment, and I know that our young people are excited and their parents are delighted that these kids have a safe and happy place to play in,” Cardinal Gregory said and went on to bless the playground and the students and attendees.
The cardinal cut the ribbon with giant red safety scissors, and the children cheered.
Gerald D. Smith Jr., the principal of St. Thomas More Catholic Academy, addressed attendees in explaining how the school was opened in 1957, three years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, which declared segregation in public schools, including playgrounds, unconstitutional.
He told the Catholic Standard why the playground was such an essential project for St. Thomas More.
“We’re here in Southeast D.C ., Ward Eight, a very marginalized community here in D.C., and when I started here as principal five years ago, the first thing that the parent board told me that they needed when I asked, 'What can I do as my active service?’ (The parents said) ‘We need a playground. We’ve been asking, we’ve been fighting, and we haven’t had it,’” Smith said.
Smith has been principal at the school for six years and has been with St. Thomas More since 2013, with a two-year gap when he taught at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Maryland. The principal shared what he believes sets his school apart.
“From the thinking and understanding that we developed, we have in the last five years had amazing educators come and go who have been rooted in social justice teaching, creating spaces where students, not only their thinking matters, but their voice matters, cultivating and curating learning experiences that are rooted in our Catholic standards, but also are preparing them for the world around them...As my kindergarten teacher says, we’re the heart of Fourth Street,” Smith said.
Lisa Williams, the kindergarten teacher at St. Thomas More, has taught there for 30 years and has seen the school grow.
“I think it is so important that [the playground] gives them a chance to build community and to express themselves, and to just smile and laugh with each other, and to show how important play is in their development,” Williams said.
One of her students, 5-year-old Addilyn Lewis, said she already had a favorite part of the playground: the giant xylophone.
