This local district will replace its sports stadium turf after nearly 14 years

Monroe Schools’ partnership with Premier Health will see the medical center pay $150,000 of the replacement cost with the remaining $228,000 coming from the district’s permanent improvement fund as allowed by Ohio school law. The turf was first intalled in 2005.

Work will begin this month on tearing up and replacing the artificial grass field at Monroe Schools’ grades 3-12 campus on Yankee Road in the Butler County city.

The new playing surface — used for football and boys and girls soccer — will be more colorful with visually striking Monroe logo at its center, said school officials.

“The field will continue to be a staple for the community and will have the ability to be leveraged by many area athletic programs, as well as for (marching) band and physical education activities,” said Monroe Schools Superintendent Kathy Demers.

As with many other school districts in the county, the artificial turf stadiums are also used by local, non-school boys and girls youth sports leagues.

In Butler County, only three of the 10 districts – New Miami, Ross and Madison – still have natural grass sports fields though Madison school officials earlier last year launched a fund-raising campaign to purchase plastic turf.

Most school systems in Butler and Warren counties are on their second-generation, artificial sports fields, which generally have a decade-long lifespan.

Monroe Schools will save money during the replacement process, said district officials, by re-using the field’s padding.

Eric Silverman, athletic director for Monroe Schools, said “the original underlying pad was part of the original installation in 2005 and typically can be used for two to three synthetic turf life-cycles.”

“The students of Monroe Schools — and our entire community — have enjoyed the benefits that our current synthetic turf field has provided since the original installation in 2005 and we are extremely excited for that to continue with installation of our new field,” said Silverman.

“Our schools are one of the focal points of our community and we believe this project will only continue to allow us to best serve our students and community members,” he said.