Dixon Public Schools on ‘borrowed time’ with sports fields

DIXON – Dixon Public Schools is on “borrowed time” with its athletics fields administrators told the board of education during a working session Monday at the district offices.

Providing the district’s student athletes with new or renovated playing fields is something school officials may need to look at in the near future, Superintendent Margo Empen said during a two-hour long discussion.

“We have to figure out how to address it. This is sitting out there,” Empen said. “We’ve been shifting and making do. That’s something we have to set our sights on. We have been on borrowed time with our fields.”

[ Proposal to repair football field failed in 2017 board of education vote. ]

The district owns few facilities, although it has gymnasiums and a football stadium. It maintains practice facilities at the middle school.

It relies on partnerships with Dixon Park District and Sauk Valley Community College to supplement venues that can hold interscholastic competitions. There is an agreement with another school for a swimming pool and bowling takes place at a private business.

Uncertainty about field conditions is leading to missed chances to be awarded by the Illinois High School Association hosting duties for postseason events. The site receives a share of the ticket gate during postseason events.

“We’ve been at times holding our breath,” Empen said. “Can we hold a regional game, because fields are in such poor condition? Will they approve it?”

The school is ineligible to host track and field postseason events because the track doesn’t have the minimum number of lanes, for example.

It also has led to decisions that are not optimal. The district now has an arrangement to move soccer games to Sauk Valley Community College because of the need to “rest” the football field, which requires constant off-season attention.

Empen acknowledged that move did not sit well with the soccer community. “People were offended by that decision,” she said.

Board President Linda Wegner and facilities director Kevin Schultz ran down the list of the fields. Softball and baseball are held at locations run by the park district.

“Baseball fields are a shortage in this community,” Schultz said. “We’ve looked at trying to renovate the far north field at Jefferson. It’d be one additional field.”

Tennis is at the park district and cross country runs at the community college.

“We couldn’t do this stuff without Sauk or the park district,” Wegner said.

That point of appreciation was echoed by other board members, including Jon Wadsworth, as well as Empen.

Schultz said the football field has deteriorated because of drainage conditions and decades of overuse for games, practices, band, physical education and soccer.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, the field rested and it let the grass heal some.

Yet, this past summer the school district spent three months adding top dress and overdress seeding to the field. Wet conditions in the second week of August, however, caused a mold fungus to form on the field, eliminating all their work.

“If we get a four-inch rain, that field is underwater,” Schultz said.

The weather that week also caused problems for using the practice fields at the middle school.

Moreover, Empen said, the football field’s proximity to the Rock River and its altitude relative to the shore prevents the district from installing an artificial surface.

Additionally, there’s been uncertainty a few times whether the field could even be used for games. The district had earlier explored options of renting a field elsewhere in such an emergency. Schultz said: “Looking to having to rent a stadium? $5,000 game.”

The board’s vice president, Rachel Cocar, asked if there was something that the Community Engagement Committee could do to generate creative solutions or put it on people’s radar.

Wadsworth, who is on the committee, said the first meeting was held and members said they were devoted to making student social and emotional health a priority for the year; Cocar acknowledged the importance of that work.

Wegner suggested the committee consider athletics fields as a long-term project and Wadsworth said he would bring it to the committee.

“Do you think people would rally around that if it were our sports?” Cocar asked.

Empen replied that in terms of a referendum, voters previously did not support one.

The discussion, which came up in the context of Reagan Middle School needing a new roof within a few years, continued.

“It’s a sticking point,” board secretary Brandon Rogers said. “It was taxes going up. A roof, you’ve got to do it. Community has no options. The sports side of it.”

Finance officer Marc Campbell said the district’s facility improvement plan does not account for such significantly priced items. Other sources of income are needed.

“What I mean is, it requires us to take on debt,” Campbell said. “We want you to know that up front. We want you to be prepared to have conversations in the community as to why we don’t have baseball and softball fields of our own or artificial turf. That’s money we would never be able to save out of county sales tax. We don’t have an avenue where these things occur.”