For more than a year, Manuela Ippolito has dreamed of creating a skate park for her community. She envisions a plaza near Lincoln Park, complete with ramps, murals of leaders like Cesar Chavez and benches where locals can watch skaters land tricks.
Each week, the skateboarding club the fifth-grade teacher leads at Porter Elementary School’s North Campus meets in a makeshift area of a school playground. She’s seen how skateboarding has transformed her students and their lives.
“All you need is that first board, and then you can go out on your own,” Ippolito said. “If you have somewhere close by, you can skate to that skate park and practice.”
But now that school is out for the summer, she’s worried about her students’ progress. They can’t access the playground outside of school hours, and the nearest skate park is about two miles away, at Southcrest Trails.
But Ippolito has learned that there’s a lot that goes into getting a skate park created. She’s contacted local representatives, attended community meetings and reached out to the Skatepark Project, an initiative from professional skateboarder Tony Hawk that helps build skate parks in underserved communities.
“It’s just I don’t know where to go and what to do exactly,” she said.
So earlier this month, to generate excitement and get local leaders’ attention, Ippolito and about 25 Porter students gathered on the sidewalk across from the school to march for a skate park. “We want a skate park,” they chanted, and held signs with phrases such as “skate not hate” and “less time online, more time at the skate park.”
Ippolito has been running the after-school skate club since last September, though she’s been looking to create a skate park since the beginning of last year. Each Wednesday, she and about 10 students meet to practice their skate skills and learn new tricks.
When Ippolito began the club, she expected to invite coaches to teach the kids. But since many of the students didn’t know how to skate before joining, she became their coach.
“It wasn’t my intention to teach kids how to skate,” Ippolito said. “I just thought we were all going to gather and have fun skating.”
Over the school year, she helped the kids learn fundamentals — standing on the board — and more advanced skills like mastering an ollie, a difficult move where you jump into the air with the board without using your hands.
Sofia Abugaber, a fifth-grader, doesn’t know where she’s going to practice these next few months, which makes her sad.
“I will try my best to do what I can,” she said. She says the best part about it is learning from her mistakes and improving.
Other students aim to practice on the street outside their homes. But Ippolito worries that it will be tough for them to keep it up without an organized outlet. She coordinated with families to bring some students to a skate park some days last summer and hopes to again this year.
“Skating is relaxing and helps you be yourself,” said Nahomi Moreno, a fifth grader who started skateboarding about two months ago. But it can be hard to skateboard on the road or sidewalks — bumps, cracks and rocks make the board unstable. “If there was a skate park, it would be easier to stay on,” she explained.
Ippolito first contacted the mayor’s office in January 2023 and met with officials to discuss her proposal. She then met with her council member and the city parks department and contacted CalTrans about possible sites. But she’s been frustrated by the slow pace of the process.
In the meantime, she’s also been scouting potential sites herself — including one near Chollas Lake Park and a lot across the street from her school that is owned by the church next door. A skate park right across from the school would be ideal, she said, but ultimately, she just wants local leaders’ help figuring out how to proceed.
In San Diego, all park projects go through the city’s long-term Capital Improvements Program. City staff review potential projects based on a range of factors, including direction from the mayor or City Council, legal requirements, city plans and community input.
In the Citizen’s Guide to Infrastructure, the city recommends that the public give input on needed infrastructure projects by contacting their city council member, giving feedback at community planning and recreation committee meetings and attending City Council budget meetings. Ippolito and Cody Pennefather, a YMCA skateboard instructor in North County, plan to attend next month’s Chollas Valley Community Planning Group meeting to discuss her proposal.
She’s also moving to expand the offerings of her school’s skate club.
Last fall, she invited Ron Allen, the pioneering Black pro skateboarder, to talk with the kids about the sport’s history and skate with them. “That was a huge deal,” she said.
The folks behind Chowder the Bulldog, a famous skateboarding dog, donated helmets, stickers and shirts. And Rollin’ From The Heart, a local nonprofit that brings skateboarding opportunities to disadvantaged youth, donated skateboards, helmets and safety pads. This fall it will bring the program coaches and temporary ramps.
“Skateboarding is just the hook,” said co-founder John Barry. “Our bigger mission is to teach kids how to communicate more effectively, how to defuse conflicting situations and how to just to be more kind, compassionate and tolerant of each other.”
Ippolito, too, is focused on the social benefits that a skate park could bring, especially by keeping kids offline. Research she published this year found that students used social media up to eight hours a day, and most of the 28 participants reported using it to escape when feeling sad.
Joseph Dimapilis, another Porter teacher who attended the march, says students he never would have expected have joined the club. Ippolito has been heartened to see Black girls join, since she says they’re underrepresented in the sport. And students who aren’t usually very interested in sports have given skating a try.
Dimapilis says a neighborhood skate park would also help keep kids safe.
“Some of the apartment buildings they live in are too rough, and they got gang members hanging out — so they can’t play even in their own front yard,” he said.
Many students’ families can’t afford to send their kids to summer camps to keep them engaged. Other kids spend a lot of their time shuttling between their families’ homes, or can’t get a ride to a skate park.
“You have to be involved in something to keep you motivated and inspired through life,” Ippolito said. “That’s how children thrive.”
Fifth-grader Aniyah Baines has grown more confident through skateboarding, she says. She used to be scared of getting hurt. For her, a potential skate park would bring joy and connection to her community.
“It would help people socialize,” Baines said. “If people like skating but they don’t have a skate park around here, this would make them really happy.”
