More than 50 million students are heading back to school - do you have adequate school picnic tables, benches, bleachers and other outdoor school site furnishings for them

School picnic tables, benches, bleachers and trash receptacles - everything a school facility manager needs, can still be shipped from The Park and Facilities Catalog in time for when most school doors fling open in September. Popular products that can be fast-tracked for shipping are available in our ParkExpress program.

Spectators walking on bleachers that are not IBC-compliant can be hazardou

When you think about hazards at a football or basketball game, you're probably thinking the players are the only ones at risk. Actually, spectators can also get injured by an unexpected hazard: bleachers .

Think about it. Bleachers are the one thing separating you from the ground, so if they are old or weathered, they may collapse from underneath you. Aluminum bleachers need to be sturdier than regular seats because they take so much abuse from extreme weather and overly excited fans.

Besides needing to be sturdy, bleachers are also difficult to walk on. It's easy to trip or fall between the seats, especially when they are wet or icy. The likelihood of falling is even greater

Fans in bleachers on a chilly da

By Gerald Dlubala

It's game day, you're about to spend the afternoon on some bleachers, and this afternoon is turning into a beauty. Picture perfect, with high, blue skies, offering those signature, gentle breezes that make you feel as if you're on vacation.

There are hordes of tailgaters out as you approach the venue. Confident and boisterous, each rowdy group enthusiastically touts their team's imminent success while enjoying food, drink and the companionship of fellow fans.

The good vibes continue as you enter and walk into the stadium. Rows and rows of smartly organized and efficiently placed seats in the bleachers greet you.

They're not only

Pupils on a school benc

It's back to school time and when you think about the sheer numbers of K-12 students in the US, these kids will need quite a few school benches, school picnic tables, bleachers and bike racks.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the fall of 2015, there were 50.1 million students sitting in public elementary and

Adding unique school bike racks is one way to motivate kids to use bikes

Remember when you rode a bike to school? Everybody did. Well, according to some disturbing new research, kids today are biking less than ever.

This is not good. Something must be done. Perhaps creative school bike racks could be one way to get them pedaling instead of riding.

Just one example of this problem was illustrated when a group called BikeWalkKC decided to teach bicycle safety to a group of children.

Instead of teaching of them how to bike safely, in many instances the organizers found themselves teaching the kids how to actually ride a bike.

The National Sporting Goods Association recently issued a report that said just over 10 million children in the US from 6-18 years of age biked regularly last year.

That's HALF the number from 25 years ago. That's a dramatic decline. A scary situation, considering that many kids today weigh more and do less physical activity than