Plans for a new $3 million dollar stadium has been revealed by the district, which is slated to be finished at the start of the 2020-21 school year. 

Currently, the student section is too small to hold all the students who attend games. Even parents lined the fence line, due to a lack of seating on the home side. Players and coaches had to cross through the  parking lot to get to the locker rooms prior to the game. The bleachers are close to falling apart, if all the students were to jump on it at once, it would collapse. 

“There’s no track surface left,” Durst said, “So one of the biggest things in terms of safety is getting a whole new track surface.”

The problems of the current stadium extend to other sports as well, such as track. The track surface is so worn down that it is basically all concrete at this point. This prohibits track cleats from sinking into the surface, putting athletes at risk for falls. 

“It will provide all our athletic teams an opportunity to compete in a state of the art facility,” Athletic Director Josh DeVoll says, “Our community has been very supportive in making this dream become a reality.”

The plans for the new stadium, which were unveiled recently, will provide a fix for all the issues faced by the current one. However, not everyone is happy with the new stadium. Many who opposed the levy also oppose the stadium due to the fact that the money collected is going towards it. 

“I don’t believe that the stadium needs to be upgraded as much as they are planning to do so,” Senior Sarah Carpenter says, “I know some things definitely need to be fixed due to safety concerns, but it seems like somethings are just unnecessary.”

This new stadium was made possible with the passing of the tax levy, and with the help of donations from the community. The total cost is going to be around $3 million dollars. The decision to go ahead with the plans was made by a few key players.

“In the end, it’s the board of education,” Principal Matt Durst said “We had a private group come to us and say they could do a fundraiser.” 

Construction on the new stadium is supposed to begin as soon as the last football game ends in the fall and be finished by Aug. 1, 2020.

“The biggest thing we don’t have control over is the weather in the winter and the spring, “ Durst said. “It is a tight timeline, but a doable one.” 

A popular highlight of the new stadium, in addition to the new track surface and bleachers, will be the addition of a turf surface. There will be “increased utilization of the surface,” according to Durst.

The stadium will change a lot for other sports besides football. Soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, and even baseball and softball will now be able to have some training time on the turf field. 

“As for the soccer team playing on the field, I’m not sure we will very often,” senior soccer player Alyson Parks said. “We have always been a big grass team and if our field is kept up just as it is now we won’t have a need for it.”

More improvements include adding locker rooms and meeting rooms at the football field so athletes no longer have to cross the parking lot at the start of games.

“It’s going to change so much for us in a positive way,” Durst said.