The Great Swing Prohibition

In the year 1999, the good people entrusted with the education of Washoe County’s smallest citizens took a firm and thoughtful stand against a grave public menace: the humble swing set.

For reasons of safety, and perhaps a suspicion that joy, once airborne, is difficult to regulate, the district quietly resolved that no new elementary school would ever again suffer the installation of swings. And so the children were left to crawl about on safer contraptions, close to the earth and under proper supervision, like respectable citizens.

This arrangement held for over a quarter century and might have endured longer, had someone not recently asked the dangerous question: “What about swings?”

That inquiry, like most honest ones, caused immediate discomfort.

The matter arose during the modernization of a school, when a citizen, reckless and nostalgic, wondered whether a swing set might end up getting harmed in the process. It was then that the district remembered it had, in fact, outlawed such things.

Now, it must be said, 82%of the district’s elementary schools already possessed swings, having been built before the prohibition or perhaps during a lapse in vigilance. But six schools, constructed between 2000 and 2006, were raised in a more cautious spirit and deprived of this particular pleasure. No schools were built for a dozen years after that, which conveniently prevented further incidents of swinging.

The initial ban was for safety, which is a common reason for such restrictions. As children, it was reasoned, might fall off swings, collide with one another, or, worst of all, learn the laws of motion through firsthand experience, like 'bailing out.'

Jungle gyms and modular play structures were preferred, as they offer a more diversified menu of injuries. But time, that great corrector of certainty, introduced wood chips, cushioned surfaces, and a troubling body of evidence.

The district reviewed its injury reports and found, to its evident disappointment, that swings were no more dangerous than other play equipment children could climb, leap from, or misuse. In short, danger had proven itself to be democratic.

Cost, too, failed to provide a sturdy objection. A set of four swings costs between $25,000 and $50,000, a sum which, in matters of public spending, is generally considered either trivial or outrageous depending on who is speaking.

Parents, once informed of the long-standing prohibition, reacted in the way parents often do when told their children have been denied something simple and good.

At the board meeting, citizens spoke both for and against the measure, though even those acquainted with playground injuries declined to call for the abolition of fun entirely. One parent, displaying a dangerous amount of reason, suggested that children might actually benefit from learning not to walk directly in front of a moving swing, a lesson previously reserved for those who survive it.

Others argued that the swing set is not merely a device but an institution: a place where patience gets tested, boundaries negotiated, and minor diplomatic crises resolved without federal intervention.

In the end, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to lift the ban, thereby restoring to future generations the right to rise a few feet off the ground and consider the horizon.

Schools are required to provide shade structures measuring at least 20 feet by 20 feet, costing $150,000 each. This ensures that children may swing freely, but not under the sun, which remains unregulated and suspect.

Thus concludes the Great Swing Prohibition, a policy born of caution, sustained by habit, and undone by the simple persistence of common sense. The children will take it from here, it is supposed.