Dr. Maunela Ippolito is a fifth-grade teacher at Porter Elementary who loves to skateboard. Now, she’s teaching that passion to her students, and they’re all on a bigger mission to make it easier to skate in their neighborhood.
They’re learning new tricks and having fun with their friends but one group of students in San Diego's Lincoln Park neighborhood want something more — a skate park in their own neighborhood.
Dr. Manuela Ippolito not only teaches fifth grade at Porter elementary School, she also teaches the kids to ride a skateboard. Ippolito started a skate club for students last school year. This week, the students returned from summer break so they’ll once again be able to skate around part of their school yard after school. She teaches them everything from standing on their boards to new tricks. Ippolito said this can give her kids confidence not only in their skateboarding, but in themselves as well.
"You set small goals to achieve, whether it's a tic tacking or an ollie. And once you work hard at it and achieve it, there's nothing like that feeling and those skills usually never go away," Ippolito said.
"My teacher said that she's going to like make a club and I was like, oh, maybe I should sign up. Something I could do outside, because my mom's been complaining that I've been on my phone too much," said Genesis, a Porter Elementary student.
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Taking what the kids learn to a skate park is a big step in their learning progression, especially during the summer when there is no school skate club.
But the nearest skate park for these kids to practice what they’ve learned is over 2 miles away, Memorial Skate Park, which is almost an hour walk if they can’t find a ride.
Earlier this summer, the skate club members and Ippolito made signs and held a march for a skate park.
Skateboarding Stories
"Just trying to get the word out there that we need more skate parks in the area and all over San Diego, really," Ippolito said.
"There's a piece of land across the street from our school that would be perfect for a little skate park or a skate plaza," she said.
While there are many skate parks these days around San Diego, building a new one can be time-consuming. Ippolito has been going to meetings all summer and met with District 4's City Councilmember, Henry Foster III. We spoke with a skate park designer about what goes into getting one built.
"The process to get a skate park can vary in timelines," said skate park designer, Kanten Russell. "Some projects we work on can be expedited and get work through with a lot of community input and support, but a lot of other projects do take a lot of time and I think I just encourage everyone who's advocating for a skate park to just realize that you just have to have patience," Russell said.
While the process of getting a new skate park built can be slow, just getting one built can bring benefits for its users beyond just the skateboarding.
"They're learning how to do things together with people they may never have been introduced to outside of skateboarding. So yeah, a lot of people have different socioeconomic backgrounds, different colors, different cultures. They're all learning more about each other through skateboarding," Russell said.
While the process of getting a skate park built for the kids is taking longer than Ippolito would like, she will continue to go to meetings, contact city officials and try to get a skate park built as she teaches her students about the sport she loves.
