Board committee reviews turf, HVAC, stadium use and school-site safety; agrees to split middle-school traffic project

The Dover Area School District Facilities & Safety Committee presented a range of operations and capital items including turf-field replacement options, a completed traffic-count component of the facility study, and a plan to split a previously approved $19,000 middle-school traffic-flow project into two separate in-house projects to address bus safety and recess circulation.

Director Mies, the committee chair, said the high school's current turf is a Premier XP product with slit-film fiber and rubber-and-sand infill that has lasted about 15 years; the contractor recommended replacement next summer. The committee reviewed a grass-versus-turf cost analysis: converting the field to grass would cost "a little over $1,000,000," while turf replacement was estimated at about $500,000, and grass requires far higher ongoing maintenance. The committee also cited published…