Schools

Board Rejects Artificial Turf Plan at Wydown Middle School

The Clayton Board of Education also discussed proposed class-size policy changes at its meeting Wednesday.

A proposal for new turf at has been rejected by the Clayton Board of Education.

The board unanimously approved nearly $1.3 million in new Wydown work packages at its Wednesday meeting, the 's board website states. The two packages include approximately $1.2 million for a pre-cast parking structure from Illini Precast and approximately $62,000 for gym equipment from Sports Con.

But in a 6-1 vote, the board rejected a district recommendation that the board approve a $53,000 synthetic turf field from Landesign. Board Vice President Jane Klamer voted in favor of artificial turf while President Sonny Buttar, Treasurer Susan Buse, Secretary Lily Raymond and directors Omri Praiss, Brad Berstein and Kristin Redington voted against it.

Klamer said she had spoken with soccer parents, a trainer, administrative personnel and others about the issue.

"The strong consensus is for turf," Klamer said during the meeting, according to audio posted to the board's website, "because while a good grass field is the best thing that we can play on, we don't have the capability of maintaining a good grass field at the level of use that we give our fields."

She argued the district could get for $53,000 what it got for $800,000 several years ago at 's Gay Field.

Synthetic turf would save the district money throughout a period of 10 or more years, reduce the need for lawn chemicals and mowing, and reduce the overuse of other district fields, comments submitted to the board from the health and physical education departments at Wydown state.

A comparison by director of facility services Tim Wonish states that synthetic turf would be preferable to real grass because it would help eliminate rug burn, stand up to repetitive use and possibly result in fewer injuries.

But Bernstein argued that while there will inevitably be drainage problems with a grass field, turf would need to be done correctly.

"I think it is an easy decision" to reject the proposal, he said.

Buse said that while she didn't initially know how she would vote, the middle school field isn't intended to be a site for high school competition.

There are "all these different balances," she said.

The base bid for the new school was for a grass field, and the district had the contractor price out artificial turf as an alternate, said Chris Tennill, the district's chief communications officer. He said the grass field is included in the total project cost and will be located above the school's new underground parking structure.

Overall, the Wydown project is under budget by approximately $182,000, a letter from project manager Mark Winschel of S.M. Wilson states. He sent the letter to Chief Financial Officer Mary Jo Gruber of the school district.

A final work package for locker work will be discussed at a later date.

Class-size revisions proposed
The board reviewed proposed revisions to the district's class-size guidelines on Wednesday.

Current guidelines outline target sizes for classes. Revisions and a new regulation, No. 6290, would set class size standards.

Find out what's happening in Clayton-Richmond Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

GRADE CURRENT TARGET SIZES PROPOSED CLASS-SIZE STANDARDS K-1 18 18 2-3 20 20 4-5 20-23 20 6-8 20-24 20 9-12 20-25 22


The new policy would include a statement aimed at addressing the possibility of increased class sizes in light of the : "Under no circumstances, however, shall students be enrolled in a classroom meeting or exceeding the class size standard who are requesting a transfer from another school in the District or who are non-residents of the District."

A proposed regulation outlines considerations that the district will take in evaluating class sizes from year to year.

"All this really does is puts what we've always done in terms of trying to set optimal class sizes in this district into policy," Tennill said. "Any of the pieces of legislation that were in play during the 2011 session that dealt with the Turner case, every one of them" required school districts to do something like this.

Find out what's happening in Clayton-Richmond Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.


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