Mirroring recent initiatives at other North Haven schools, a group of parents is seeking upgrades for Montowese Elementary School’s aged and potentially unsafe playground.

“We’re just trying to raise some money to build a better playground,” said Tammy Wilson, co-chairman of the Montowese Playground Committee. “Our main goal is to raise funds to get new equipment installed correctly for kids.”

Wilson believes Montowese needed $80,000 total for improvements.

The school has three play zones – one for kindergarten, one for first and second graders and another for third through fifth grade. Each displays distinct problems, according to Dyann Vissicchio, Montowese Playground Committee and North Haven Board of Finance member.

Fencing wrapped around the kindergarten section requires repair. In front of Montowese, first and second grade students have a full allotment of equipment, including swings, a jungle gym and other apparatuses. However, the equipment is old or out-dated, included a bumpy, metal slide and a jungle gym which is not level.

More importantly, Vissicchio pointed out, no safety gate exists between the second and third grade portion and Rock Road, which runs parallel. “The teachers have said plenty of times that that’s a safety issue,” Vissicchio said.

Primary focus is being placed on where third, fourth and fifth graders go for recess: a paved parking lot and several open fields behind Montowese, which offer only two basketball hoops, painted four square lines, a jungle gym and swings. A similar jungle gym at Clintonville Elementary School was once deemed unsafe.

“There is nothing really to use there,” Vissicchio said. “I have a child in that grade. She says that there is nothing to do when she goes outside.”

“They don’t even have a lockable storage bin for balls and jump ropes,” she added.

Like the area for first and second graders, Montowese’s rear playground could be dangerous due to location, according to Wilson. “We need to back it up, because it’s too close to the parking lot,” she said.

Overall, several tree stumps remain in the ground, and a softball field floods easily.

No specific site plan has been designed yet. “We just started all of this at the end of last school year,” Wilson said. “Talk about it had been ongoing at PTA meetings.”

Delaying project development was Montowese’s administrative turnover. “We talked to former principal Anthony Mancini, who said he was onboard, but wanted us to wait until the school got a new principal,” Vissicchio said.

In moving forward, the Montowese Playground Committee has reached out to Mancini’s successor, Mary Federico. “She has been very, very good,” Wilson said of Federico. “She hasn’t objected to anything. She definitely wants to help raise money with us.”

Federico agreed. “I’m in 100 percent support,” she said.

On the Montowese Playground Committee’s side is precedent. Recent years saw similar organizations amass sufficient money for new recreation areas at Clintonville and Ridge Road elementary schools. Last year, local parents secured a $188,000 Small Town Economic Assistance Program state grant to fund a new playground at Clintonville. “We’re working with town to see when we could apply for grants,” Wilson said. “We’re trying to get one similar to the one Clintonville got.”

“Why rebuild the wheel when you can just talk to people in town to see what they did,” Federico said. “To raise the sort of money it’s going to take to build what they want the children to have, it’s going to take a long time without grants.”

As the Montowese Playground Committee pursues grants, numerous small fundraisers have garnered money, including special in-school events, concession stands at town gatherings and the sale of t-shirts, sweatshirts, scented pencils and water bottles. However, recessionary times may slow collection of finances.

“Between playground and PTA fundraising, it’s almost too much in this economy,” Vissicchio said. “People may get tired of so much fundraising.”

Assistance in any fashion is welcome. “Anybody who wants to donate time, effort, anything, we’ll take it,” Vissicchio said.