Dist. 211 eyes turf switch on athletic fields

Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 could join other area school districts in resurfacing its stadium fields.

The board approved paying $27,000 for site plans to replace the natural grass at its five high schools with artificial turf. Board member Bill Lloyd voted against the measure.

The engineering work would be done by Hoffman Estates-based W-T Engineering Inc. Superintendent Roger Thornton said that would provide better details on how large a field each school could accommodate. With that information, Thornton said the board would be able to make a decision at its March meeting.

"At some point we have to know the definitions of the sites and we've got to know how we'll handle the water," he said.

The board last looked into artificial turf in 2002, but the effort was suspended because the district was out of money. The fields are primarily used by the soccer, football and lacrosse teams, while the marching band and spirit squads also see limited action.

Schaumburg Athletic Director Tim Kirby said artificial turf would allow the schools to use their fields more. He said Schaumburg's stadium only gets 5 percent of its potential use because the school wants to preserve the field for marquee events. If it switched to artificial turf, stadium use could jump to 78 percent, allowing band programs and physical education classes inside the stadium on a regular basis.

The stadium surface committee focused on Schaumburg and Fremd high schools, saying those fields face the toughest drainage issues. Board members George Brandt and Susan Kenley-Rupnow wondered why those schools were given preference, but Thornton maintained that wasn't true, and that all schools would be resurfaced.

Thornton also told board members if those two schools were successful with drainage issues, then the remaining three schools would be successful.

"We really have to make sure we're good neighbors," Kenley-Rupnow said.

The turf would cost about $1.3 million for full installation over two years. That includes $75,000 to remove the current sod, which would then be re-used on practice fields, said Steve East, the district's director of facilities and purchasing. The tab for all five schools would run the district about $6.5 million and would include increasing the size of the underground drainage system, as a larger rain runoff is expected.

The average life of the turf would be about eight years, but the district should be prepared to replace it every five years, Associate Superintendent for Finance David Torres said. While current staff could perform basic maintenance for a new surface, major repairs would have to be done by a third party, East said, which would bring an additional cost.

District officials said that could paid for through donations from boosters. Thornton also wants to solicit the community's opinion before the board could go forward with resurfacing the fields.

Kenley-Rupnow remained concerned about injuries to athletes who've had their shoes caught in turf seams, particularly with those who suffered from torn ACLs. Price said the committee did extensive research on safety, and that field technology has improved and better simulates natural grass.

One unexpected concern was artificial turf's link to transmitting the drug-resistant staph infection, MRSA. MRSA is spread through open wounds and cuts, and athletes suffer more abrasions playing on artificial turf.

A study by the New England Journal of Medicine released in 2005 focused on the NFL's St. Louis Rams, who play on artificial turf. Researchers found five players had contracted MRSA through cuts, but concluded it was more due to the athletes not properly cleaning their wounds. Price echoed the journal's findings, saying district officials weren't overly concerned.

Barrington High School is in the midst of switching surfaces, while Streamwood High School did so in 2000.