WSD Spotlight - A Playground Built for Everyone

Posted Date: 10/26/26 (04:30 PM)

A woman helps a child in a walker. onto a piece of playground equipment.

WSD Spotlight

Limitless Potential, Real World Ready

Hanna Sherer a woman with light colored hair smiles at the camera.

A Playground Built for Everyone

As Wenatchee School District’s school-based physical therapist, Hanna Sherer's job is to help students access every part of their school day and that includes the playground. For students who use wheelchairs or mobility devices, wood chips and a raised border around Lincoln Elementary’s playground created an accessibility challenge.

“I wanted to find a way to remove that barrier and make a lasting impact on how all students experience play together,” Hanna said. Schools don’t receive funding for accessible playground equipment, so this meant researching alternative funding sources. Hanna found OSPI’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Schools Grant, which offered up to $200,000 in funding. She wrote the application and was awarded the grant.

A green playground toy in the foreground and and two children and an adult play on a spinning toy in the background

Playground transformation

The funding covered rubber surfacing across the entire playground and allowed for the addition of two pieces of equipment: a wheelchair-accessible whirl and a sensory exploration station.

From start to finish, Wenatchee School District’s Director of Maintenance and Operations Bryan Brockie was a key partner in making it happen.

“I am enormously grateful for his support throughout the process,” Hanna said. With Bryan’s help the playground opened just after the start of the school year.

Lincoln’s Assistant Principal Lydia Oaks watched the transformation firsthand.

"The highlight has definitely been the new wheelchair-accessible whirl,” she said. “It is heart-warming to step outside and see our students who use wheelchairs playing on the playground, rather than being limited to the blacktop.”

A child looks through the green plastic of a sensory playground toy.

Everyone belongs on the playground

Students who previously watched from the side are now in the middle of it spinning, laughing, playing alongside their classmates. This project connects directly to one of WSD’s BIG SIX Strategic Plan student outcomes “that every student belongs and feels connected.

Hannah put it simply: “Inclusion is about more than offering general access to a space. It is about designing opportunities for every student to meaningfully participate, connect with peers, and feel like they are a valued part of the community.”

October is Disability History and Awareness Month. It's a time to celebrate progress and the people who make it happen. At Lincoln Elementary, that person is Hanna Sherer. She saw an opportunity to make recess better for every student, found the funding to do it, and turned a vision into something real that students experience every single day. This is inclusion in action.