Sports fields at North Rock Creek are about to get a facelift.
The school district is set to install artificial turf on the football, baseball and softball fields, using the county education sales tax to fund the project.
“It’s been on a wish list since we started the high school. So since 2019, it’s been on a wish list,” said Superintendent Blake Moody. “Although it’s been on the wish list for a while, we were able to make it happen with the passing of the county sales tax.”
Moody said the district tries to do as many facility upgrades and capital improvement projects without passing a bond issue so they don’t have to add it to the tax roll.
As such, the county education sales tax was an avenue.
Until now, they have been using it for FEMA safe rooms, with one that is rated for EF-5 tornados and doubles as classrooms during the day at the elementary site. When the tax became permanent, they worked on a longterm lease purchase that allowed for them to make a monthly payment out of the county sales tax proceeds.
“We feel fortunate and we were able to do it with that education sales tax. It is, that sales tax has allowed us to do things that we wouldn’t be able to do without it,” he said.
The school district will start with the football field, working to have it done before the first home game in September, Moody said.
From there, they will do the baseball field and then finally, have the softball field ready before the spring slow-pitch season starts.
They also plan to install it in a small section of the staff daycare area.
Moody said they got top-of-the-line artificial turf so they wouldn’t need to think of replacing or refurbishing it for about eight to 10 years.
“And we got the safest turf there is, too. So we put extra padding underneath the turf surface to prevent, and believe it or not, it’s not just concussions. It’s twisting ankles and torn ACLs,” Moody said. “And we’ve got a turf system that is top of the line and safe to prevent as many of those injuries as we can. As grass-like as it can get and as safe as it can be.”
He said it’s the same turf system that the University of Oklahoma installed on their baseball and softball fields.
Every outdoor athletic group from pre-K to 12th grade uses these facilities, Moody said, including the youth athletic football and cheer programs. The fields are used all the time, so the football field in particular stayed “pretty beat up.” Not to mention, when it rains, the field is out of commission for several days. The turf will allow the youth athletics, intermediate, middle school and high school programs to use the fields year-round, the superintendent said.
“We host a lot of statewide competitions too. We still host a lot of our K-8 school state championships, our ORIS, Organization of Rural Elementary School events,” he added. “And so, it’ll just allow us to accommodate hosting those big groups throughout the year too.”
North Rock Creek has been able to do many upgrades at the schools thanks to the county sales tax outside of the safe rooms and artificial turf. Moody said they’ve also been able to pave almost all of their parking lots and roadways on campus and have accumulated almost $1.8 million in a reserve account that they plan to use to build a secondary safe room at the high school site as soon as FEMA approves it.