Freeman School District begins sports complex project

By John McCallum Current correspondent

Thanks to a collaborative effort between students, parents, school district teachers and staff and — most importantly — voters, Freeman School District is on track to have one of the nicer, more modern sports facilities for a district of its size in the Spokane area.

School District Superintendent Randy Russell said the project is the next step in the master plan for modernizing the entire school complex started with passage of a $19.5 million, 20-year bond in 2008. The measure passed with a 65.8% voter approval, and enabled modernization of the high school and elementary school, along with middle school improvements, a new transportation facility and district offices.

“We’ve been taking on a new project for 10 of the last 12 years,” Russell said.

The latest is the $2.65 million sports complex — funded by passage of the Capital Facilities Replacement Levy in 2021. The first portion is modernization of Kent Smith Field, the football / track and field stadium.

Russell said the work is being done in three phases, the first of which is underway and slated to be completed by the Scotties first football game on Sept. 1. Phase 1 involves removing existing grass and dirt and installing synthetic field turf, along with improved lighting and other infrastructure needs such as drainage, fiber optics and WiFi.

Phase 2 will feature improvements to the bleachers along with storage upgrades while Phase 3 will provide more storage and additional features.

Russell said the district is using a design / build format for the sports complex project. While other area districts such as Cheney have done design / build — where the customer, project manager and general contractor collaborate on design of a project — Russell believes Freeman is the first in the area to utilize this for sports fields.

All companies involved are local, headed by project manager OAC and general contractor Garco Construction. AM Landshaper is providing the ground work, with Coast to Coast Turf supplying and installing the turf and Triumph Electric doing lights and other wiring requirements.

The process began with removing 14 inches of soil from the interior of the stadium’s track — with over 300 dump truck loads of dirt transported to another location on the district complex for reuse.

A cement powder known as Cement Base Treatment (CBT), was then rototilled into the exposed soil with a Star Wars-looking machine followed by rolling and grading the resulting surface to provide a foundation. Russell said the rototilling usually requires hundreds of thousands of gallons of water in the process, but only required thousands of gallons due to the nature of the clay soil underneath the district complex.

The CBT foundation was then overlaid with 10 inches of rock, followed by 4 inches of sand and a pad for the turf. The turf itself, Root Zone by AstroTurf, was then rolled and fitted into place.

Besides reducing the need for irrigation and other maintenance, the newer version of synthetic turf is more durable and results in fewer injuries than original AstroTurf due to its use of compounds such as recycled rubber products.

Russell said the need to move forward with the stadium turf project became evident this past fall when the Freeman football team and girls soccer team qualified for the state playoffs — but were unable to host games because early winter weather conditions had made the field unplayable. The teams ended up playing at University High School in Spokane Valley.

Russell said the field turf will save the district money and stress on its water supply by reducing the need for irrigation and other forms of maintenance, which runs about $60,000 a year.

“The savings here will go to future purchase of new turf, which will likely be needed in 12 – 15 years,” Russell said. “That will involve putting the new carpet over the existing, which will take care of us for the next 25 years.”

The district is also working on improvements with its middle school fields through utilizing new maintenance techniques. One of these is “fraze” mowing, a process used in Europe since 1996 and recently employed in the U.S., including locally at Gonzaga University, Washington State University and Mead School District.

According to information from the Foundation for Safer Athletic Fields, the process involves a special rotary tiller that removes the top 2 inches of turfgrass surface. This allows for removing thatch, black and incompatible soil layers, shallowly rooted weeds and weed seeds to leave turfgrass roots, rhizomes and crowns with a better ability to regenerate.

The district is also using the dirt removed from the interior of the stadium in other areas to level slopes and fill in areas to create more playing surfaces. All the work being done will be utilized not only by sports teams but by physical education classes and other school activities.

Russell said “teams of people” have worked on the project. District staff members selected on project committees have analyzed mounds of information and toured other facilities to learn best practices, while students and parents conducted interviews of turf contractors.

Russell believes that process helped vest the community in the work, and should lead to better facilities in the long run.

“We learned a lot ahead of time,” he said. “It saved us time. It saves us heartache. It saved us money, which is good.”