Parents, coaches and students urge school committee to reconsider asphalt track and field plan

Dozens of parents, coaches and student-athletes urged the Nantucket School Committee on Oct. 8 to revisit an approved athletic facilities master plan that includes an asphalt track and limited field capacity, saying the proposal risks athlete injuries and fails to address chronic overuse of fields.

The speakers — who included coaches, parents and current high school athletes — told the committee an asphalt track would be too hard and would increase injuries such as shin splints and stress fractures. Many asked the committee to form a working group with coaches and parents to review surfaces, field capacity and maintenance before moving ahead.

Those concerns were raised repeatedly during the public-comment period. Grama Bizzi, identified in her remarks as a community member, urged the board to “revisit these approved athletic plans and consider expanding capacity or consider turf,” saying grass fields on island are already overused and that children are being forced to travel off island for usable turf. “Asphalt is too hard and increases injury, and it puts the students at risk,” Bizzi said.

Kate Garrett, who introduced herself as the junior-varsity girls soccer head coach, an emergency-room registered nurse at Nantucket Cottage Hospital and a parent, said asphalt is an outdated surface for school athletics and cited the incompatibility with spiked running shoes. “For a sport that spans three seasons ... our student athletes deserve an appropriate track and field surface to train and compete on year round,” Garrett said. She and other speakers noted that synthetic surfaces have evolved and pointed to PFAS-free turf and USDA-certified track options as technologies the district should consider.

Student speakers described practical hardships caused by limited on-island playable surfaces. Dominic Passes and other students said teams currently travel away from campus for meets and practices; Madden Myers, who said she is captain of the soccer and lacrosse teams, described parents racing between multiple sites during the same evening and missing portions of games. Coaches and parents pressed the committee to consider either additional practice fields or higher-quality, more durable surfaces so fields are not repeatedly overused across overlapping sports seasons.

Several speakers asked that the committee involve coaches and parents in plan revision. “Can you please form a working committee with coaches and parents to review these plans and partner with the architects?” Bizzi asked. Hadley Dutra said the campus-wide master plan committee had been formed to oversee capital projects and asked that it be reinstated so proposals are vetted before school-committee approval and public release.

Supporters of synthetic turf noted that playgrounds on the island already use synthetic materials and that new turf products have reduced PFAS content. Opponents focused on injury risk and maintenance tradeoffs. Several coaches said more practice fields — even grass if properly maintained — would ease overuse and lower injury risk if synthetic surfaces are not chosen.

The public-comment period on Oct. 8 occupied roughly 30 minutes of the meeting and included multiple speakers across programs (soccer, lacrosse, track/cross-country, football). The committee did not take an action on the athletic plan during the meeting; members asked questions and heard the community’s requests. Several public speakers asked that the item be added to a future school-committee meeting agenda for further discussion.

Next steps were not specified during the meeting. Speakers asked for an explicit committee-led working group or a return to the campus-wide master plan committee for more community review before any construction decisions proceed.