Students at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind are getting to “shape their own world” through their brand-new universally accessible playground.

The playground began as a class project in 2018 and was officially unveiled Wednesday afternoon during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which drew a large crowd of community members, alumni and city leaders to the school.

Jack Lambert, a former student and a graduate of the Class of 2020, was part of the group that started this project. Lambert said the idea for the playground started five years ago in a social studies class of all places.

“The teachers here empowered us to ensure that when we created a project based around an issue that we believed in, that we were so passionate about, that it would be for the benefit of those students and community members that came after our time,” Lambert said.

The project took several years of fundraising and extensive planning, with feedback from orientation mobility specialists, like Robin Teuting, shaping the space to be safe and inclusive. The overall design was influenced by the knowledge of 12 staff members and student feedback, according to the school.

“It was really cool that when we gave feedback, they took it and ran with it,” Teuting said. “Initially, the plan was a big open area with winding sidewalks, and esthetically, it looked great, but my colleague and I looked at that and we knew that would not make sense to our students.”

The playground has several details that speak to its accessibility. On the north entrance, there are places to store backpacks, and more specifically, students’ canes.

The park also features large boldface signs throughout with Braille to help the students with low vision navigate without their cane as is intended by the design. Each area has its sign so students are able to “feel” their options for play while walking through the playground.

Also for students who have low vision or are blind, there are several auditory play equipment options, which staff members used to count down to the ribbon cutting during the ceremony.

The playground also promotes friendship and community through features like the wheelchair accessible merry-go-round and buddy swings, one of which is also wheelchair accessible.

Each piece of the playground appears to serve a purpose, even with the color scheme being bright with high contrast colors to assist those students with low vision. Vibrant yellows and blues make it easier for some students to see the shapes of the equipment.

Even the ceremony was accessible, with a staff member from the school giving everyone in attendance a play-by-play audio description of where people where and who was in attendance.

The playground was built by Nunn Construction and N.E.S. Landscape Architects, who were hired using state funding through the Office of the State Architect. Tyson Nunn, president of Nunn Construction, attended the event and expressed gratitude for being able to be a part of the project.

“I would humbly offer that the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind has the absolute best playground in the entire state. Now there’s some playgrounds that are bigger. Maybe some may have water that sprays up in the air. Some might have taller slides,” Nunn said. “But that doesn’t matter; this playground welcomes everyone.”

This new accessible playground is not the only one in Colorado Springs, as Legacy Peak Elementary School, among others, recently created one for their campus.

Laura Paris, principal of Legacy Peak Elementary School, believes that all students should be able to play together without anyone being left out because they cannot access playground equipment.

“Since school started a few weeks ago, we’ve already seen students playing at recess, specifically using the adaptive swing,” Paris said in an email.

“It is great to see our neurodivergent students swinging alongside their peers, with big smiles on their faces and enjoying elementary school recess.”

Paris said she has seen students play alongside each other without noticing differences of their peers through their accessible playground.

At Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind, while students had already spent some time at the playground as construction wrapped up ahead of schedule, their excitement Wednesday during the official ceremony was apparent.

Something special the students got to do during the ribbon cutting was place rocks they painted in class throughout the playground, truly leaving their mark. Several students were seen searching for the “perfect spot” for their rock with the help of several staff members after the ceremony.

Other students were seen guiding themselves through the playground through the use of the accessible features with wide smiles on their faces. Many kids jumped from area to area, checking out each feature with their friends.

“(The playground) not only allows us to show students that they can use the many mechanics of a structure to grow and to develop in their own way, but rather they can navigate this structure themselves,” Lambert said. “They can understand how the world works and how they have the opportunity in front of them to shape their own world.”