The District will be installing turf in all high school athletic stadiums over the next 2 years in its most significant capital improvement in almost a decade.

North will be expecting installation during the summer of 2017.The Board of Education authorized the project during a special meeting on December 21 after years of investigating the project.

“[Turf] has been talked about since 2000,” said Lane Abrell, District 202 Superintendent. “The board came close to authorizing the project in 2008-2009, but the economy crashed, and money really got tight.”

The cost for all four stadiums to be redone totals about $6.5 million, the project is being financed by the sale of tax-exempt bonds.

“Tax-exempt bonds are used for what are called Capital projects. They can be used for building a new building, or an addition, or for something like turf,” said Abrell. “The money cannot be used for teachers’ salaries or textbooks or things like that.”

When Abrell was principal at Central during the early 2000’s, he and the principal at South investigated including turf as apart of building all new high schools in District 202. The budget wouldn’t allow this.

“Building a high school is expensive enough, adding even a little wouldn’t have worked,” said Abrell.

If the project would have gone through at the time, all high schools would have been built with turf and Central would have eventually received theirs as part of the project.

As it currently stands, Central and South will receive turf over the summer of 2016, with construction starting in May and ending mid-September.  North and East will begin in 2017 with the same timeline.

“The reason we split them up is because if there is a problem with materials, a labor strike, or something else, we have the possibility of having all 4 high schools without a field,” said Abrell.

The addition of turf allows for more use of the fields, as it stands the schools have to be cautious about who uses the fields and try to minimize the damage to the grass.

“You get in trouble for stepping on the field at times,” said Tony Holler, Freshman Football and Boys Track Coach.

“Numerous people believe that this improvement is just for football but theoretically every student that goes through District 202 for high school will, at some point, be on the fields,” said Abrell. “If they are a football player they will, if they are a soccer player they will, and if they are a band member they will. There will be PE classes on the fields during the day.”

Baseball and softball often, for example, have to practice in the field house or gym when their fields are unusable in early spring, but with the turf stadium teams can get outdoors and hit balls on the field.

The use of the field will help the band tremendously when it comes to competitions. Abrell suggests that the band could practice as much as 5 nights a week on the turf.

“The turf is a big help,” said Tim Hatcher, Band Director, “The turf provides more bounce and you can move faster than in the parking lot.”

All of the competitions the band attends already are on turf.

“The hope is to be able to possibly host a completion here at North on the turf as a possible fundraiser,” said Hatcher.

As a part of redoing the field, the schools will receive new tracks, except for Central, who will have minor repairs done to their two-year-old track.

“The tracks are getting redone also,” said Abrell. “North’s hasn’t been redone since the building opened in 2005.”

Over 10 years of use North’s track has gotten to a point where it is unusable in certain situations. Last year, North was unable to host Sectionals, instead having to use Central’s track for the event.

“Our track is still in such bad shape we could not host certain events in the past,” said Holler.

The idea for the stadium fields are that they are used continuously. When the schools are not using them, the Park District will have use of the fields.

The hopes are that the fields are used at all times, when you drive by Naperville Central, for example, you can see use during all times of the day and night, said Abrell.