Parents fence for safer school yard

Michael Miller

A parents’ group has started a campaign to erect a fence around

Mariners Elementary School, citing a need for more protection of

students.

However, the fence proposal has turned into a contentious issue

around the city, as parents, teachers, school officials and athletic

groups are debating where the fence should be placed -- or even if it

should be placed at all.

“There isn’t an overarching consensus here,” said Tim Marsh,

facilities director for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, at

a meeting at the school on Tuesday. “Statistically, there’s not a

need to do it. As a parent, if something happened to my child, I

wouldn’t care about statistics.”

Mariners is one of five elementary schools in Newport-Mesa --

along with Adams, Andersen, Newport and Woodland -- that does not

have a fence around its playground.

This spring, a small group of parents known as the Mariners Fence

Action Committee contacted the district about establishing a

chain-link fence on their school’s yard. The campus, which borders

Mariners Park, features a backyard that blends into the city

property. At present, Mariners Elementary’s four playground monitors

have to watch the students to make sure they don’t stray too far

afield.

In May, responding to the committee’s request, Marsh submitted a

plan for a fence to be erected right alongside the blacktop on

Mariners’ playground. Supporters of the plan say that the tight fence

would allow the school’s small number of monitors to adequately

oversee the children. In addition, officials from the American Youth

Soccer Organization and Newport Harbor Baseball Assn., both of which

use Mariners Park, prefer the blacktop fence because it would not

interfere with their fields.

Many committee members, however, argue that the fence should stand

on the school’s official boundary line, located midway through the

grass. In a report to the district, the committee claimed that having

the fence so close to the school would give monitors insufficient

time to react to intruders, and would cause chokepoints if students

had to evacuate.

“We’re up against a baseball league that doesn’t want to lose one

of its fields, a city that wants to keep it all open space, and a

district who wants to get along with the city and doesn’t want to

cause any problems,” said Howard Denghausen, a Mariners parents who

is on the committee.

Apart from the issue of the fence’s placement, neighbors are also

debating whether the added protection is necessary at all. At the

Tuesday meeting, a number of teachers noted that they had worked at

the school for years and never perceived a problem.

Jan Wood, who teaches the fifth grade, had her students comment on

the fence proposal for a persuasive writing project and shared some

of their responses at the meeting. One essay read, “Everyone will be

sad because it looks like a prison,” while in another, a student

wrote, “If someone wants to get over the fence, they’ll just hop it.”

According to Lt. Craig Frizzell and Sgt. Bill Hartford, the

Newport Beach Police Department has a record of only one incident at

Mariners in the last five years. On April 12, 2001, police arrested a

34-year-old man who had entered the girls’ bathroom to use the

facilities. The man was spotted in the bathroom by a first-grade girl

and arrested soon afterward on charges of false imprisonment.

Hartford noted that he supported the city and district’s plan to

erect the fence around the blacktop.