Youth Athletic Groups to School Board: Let Us Play

Outside groups will no longer have access to the main athletic fields at the local high schools and middle schools, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District School Board announced Tuesday night.  

That move, an attempt to allow the fields to regenerate and address safety concerns, came as a surprise to some athletic organizers, including several members of the Merrick Police Athletic League (PAL) who were in attendance at the board meeting. 

PAL board members said they have been signing up children for the fall travel soccer season under the assumption that their permit to hold some of their games on the Merrick Avenue Middle School football field would be granted by the district as it has been for the past 10 years. 

"We will have to go to 100 to 200 kids and tell them that their season may be off the table," said Matt Kurzweil, president of Merrick PAL's travel program.

A district athletic fields committee advised the board earlier this year to shut down the main (football) fields at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools to outside groups.  The committee's report suggested "increased maintenance on the middle school football fields," but it made no mention of completely closing them off to outside use.

School officials made clear Tuesday night that it was not their desire to displace sports teams, but that the logistics just didn't add up.

"We don't have enough fields for everyone," board trustee Susan Schwartz said. "They just don't exist.  Even if every field was in perfect shape, we still wouldn't have enough fields for every child to play on."

Schwartz added regarding closing the fields:  "This decision doesn't come lightly. We hate to be taking the fields away.  It's not something any of us want to do.  We're trying to find a solution to help the kids." 

PAL members were also upset with the timing of the decision, saying that if they had found out in April that the middle schools would be off-limits, they would be in a better position to find other venues to hold games.

The directive to close the middle school fields came on June 15 in a memo from Cynthia Strait Régal, deputy superintendent for business, to John Scalisi, the director of school facilities and operations. 

"Please note that displaced groups are not to be scheduled on the other District fields," a portion of the memo reads.  "That is, the use of those fields should remain substantially the same as this year's use." 

School officials did, however, say Tuesday night that many fields in the district–including those at Brookside School and Jerusalem Avenue–would remain open and that they would be willing to coordinate with all outside groups to come up with some solutions. 

Newly elected school board president Nina Lanci asked if there was any way for PAL to schedule more away games in the fall.  The field closures may last much longer, though. 

Scalisi said the fields would be closed indefinitely.  When he mentioned it could be at least two years before the district considered re-opening them to outside groups, a gasp was heard in the crowd.

The school board breezed through its July agenda in about 20 minutes Tuesday night before Merrick resident Susan Mandeltort spoke up on the fields issue.

"I'd be very disappointed if our children don't have home fields to play on in the Bellmore-Merrick district," said Mandeltort, whose son Justin, a 2010 Calhoun graduate, played PAL travel soccer for six years.  "He could not have played the sport if he did not have home fields." 

Between January 2009 and November 2009, 242 teams from outside organizations used the district's 31 fields, according to a report from the fields committee.  Merrick PAL, with 110 teams, and Bellmore PAL, with 80 teams, made up a bulk of those organizations.

John Pinto, who was a member of the fields committee, runs the Bellmore-Merrick PAL lacrosse program, made up of 200 children in the spring months.  The group currently uses the Grand Avenue Middle School field on the weekends and the main field at Kennedy High from March to June, he said.

"If you move forward with this recommendation, my program will not exist," said Pinto, who was among those who questioned why the board was deviating from the recommendations made by the fields committee. 

Board trustees noted that the committee's recommendations were only advisory in nature with the board having the final say. 

Trustee Janet Goller said the district had already taken steps to alleviate the stress on the middle school fields, including holding physical education classes on blacktop instead of grass.  That has not done enough to take care of the problem, Goller said.

"Everyone needs to sacrifice a little bit," she told the PAL directors.  "We have to be fair to everyone going forward."

In other school board action:

• Lanci was elected as the new board president, replacing Diane Seaman. Matt Kuschner, who was unable to attend Tuesday's meeting, was elected as vice-president of the board. 
• The board approved an agreement with Zimmerman/Edelson, Inc. to provide public information services for the 2010/11 school year at an annual cost of $45,432.
• The board approved an agreement with Coughlin, Foundotos, Cullen & Danowski, LLP for external auditor services for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011 at an annual cost of $50,700. 

The board meets next on August 4.