Back on the field: PikeView short on soccer space

PRINCETON — The absence of a practice soccer field kicked up a debate at this week's Mercer County Board of Education session.

During the public input portion of the meeting, former Board member Lynne White addressed the panel, encouraging members to make good on an alleged promise to replace the practice soccer field that once sat on the property now occupied by PikeView Middle School.

Thanking the members for the opportunity to speak, White said she was on hand to address “some important, unfinished business: the overdue replacement of the soccer practice field.”

In 2008, White said Superintendent Dr. Deborah Akers and Board President Greg Prudich assured members of the PikeView community that the soccer practice field would be established in another location, if construction of the new middle school claimed the existing practice field. The middle school construction did just that, but White said no action has been taken to secure an adequate practice field on another stretch of land surrounding the Gardner school.

“Three teams — the coed middle school soccer team and both high school soccer teams — are all practicing these days on a small, 20-by-30-yard space behind the bleachers, basically on left field of the softball field, in an effort to minimized damage to the soccer field,” White said. “The soccer field is also shared, by the way, with the middle school PE classes. Yesterday's classes went outside on a beautiful day and inadvertently tore up some of the grass where the playing surface is especially wet. It's impossible to watch all these boys and girls practice in that cramped space behind the bleachers without feeling the sting of as-yet-unfulfilled promise to provide them with a practice field.”

There is land available around the middle and high schools that would be suitable for a practice field, but White reported that the dirt in the best location is too hard at this point to grow adequate grass cover for the field. One plan called for soil removed during the PVMS construction to be deposited on the proposed soccer field, to improve seeding possibilities in the future.

White said that never happened. Instead, she said, dirt removed from the Middle School site was simply spread throughout the property.

The board approved seeding for a soccer practice area as one of its 2011-2012 projects, but the priority ranking changed in June, when White reported the status on one document read, “According to the prospective bidder and principal, seeding is OK — request to board is for drainage topsoil, and other improvements. Project of this scope was discussed and rejected earlier. No further action.”

She said the lack of progress was troubling for two reasons.

“First, it appears to me that there had been some confusion and conflation of the two separate needs for, one, fixing the drainage on the current soccer field where the seeding is OK — at least it was before yesterday; and, two, transforming the flat area behind the soccer building into a soccer practice field, where the seeding is definitely not OK and where topsoil is needed for seeding and safety,” she said.

Prudich reportedly once defended the board's decision not to replace the practice field by advising that he had a family member who played on a previous PVHS team that never used the practice field. White countered Tuesday that the practice field was never used because it became safe for play just before construction began on PVMS.

“I asked the assistant soccer coach about that, and she pointed out with some frustration that they had never used the practice field because it was taken for the building of the middle school just as the hardworking parents and volunteers had gotten it ready for use,” White said.

She read portions of previous meeting transcripts back to the Board, indicating that both Prudich and Akers pledged they would replace the soccer field in the future.

“I want to remind the board that the promise to the students and taxpayers to build the new practice field was not given with caveats. No one said, 'We'll replace the practice field we're taking for the new school, as long as there aren't rocks in our way, or as long as the dirt there is already good enough to grow grass,'” White said.

The Board recently approved its 2012-2013 athletic priorities, and White asked that the PikeView soccer field be restored as part o the $400,000 in spending slated.

Prudich countered that most of the $400,000 is scheduled to accommodate Title IX rules, requiring that school systems provide comparable facilities for both boys' and girls' sports.

“It'll go through the same process we all go through for all projects,” Prudich said. “… My recollections are not always the same as your recollections.”

He also stood by the assertion that the previous practice field was not adequate for soccer, whether or not the middle school was built.

“I stood in the middle of that field. It was not suitable for soccer. It was not going to be suitable for soccer,” he said.

White reminded board members that girls' soccer is part of the Title IX rules and that she had taken excerpts of her presentation directly from previous Board transcripts.

Prudich responded that words could often be twisted to suit the situation.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.

News

Search Results

Discussion

Back on the field: PikeView short on soccer space

Site Map

Contact Us