Guest column by former Councilmember Hans Riemer.
Don’t shut down kids’ access to sports and physical activity.
That’s what’s at stake as the Montgomery County Council prepares to vote on whether to fund new athletic fields at our public high schools. This decision isn’t just about sports. It’s about whether thousands of students will have access to physical education during the school day and a place to be active after school.
These facilities are where students enjoy recreational play and a mental health break during the school day, take up a new sport, or train for competition and scholarship opportunities. This important vote will also determine whether after-school programs, local leagues, and teams serving players of all ages, from school kids to seniors, have a place to play.
All of this is on the line because MCPS has proposed critical investments in new high-access athletic fields. The school system’s goal is to build a facility for each high school campus that can provide the hours of play needed to support both school and community use, without shutting down. To achieve that level of access, these fields use durable, manufactured surfaces—like a basketball court, a gym floor, or a running track—surfaces specifically designed to handle constant daily use by students.
The first set of schools that will receive these new fields are Poolesville, Magruder, Watkins Mill, and Springbrook High Schools. There will be eight additional schools to follow, completing MCPS’s goal of providing a stadium field for every high school.
After years of testing materials and comparing usage and access, the case for funding these fields is now clear.
Now is the moment to call on the County Council: overturn the cuts to athletic facilities and fully fund the MCPS plan. If you care about safety, health, and opportunity, don’t shut down kids’ and community access to sports and physical activity.
The Budget Picture
The MCPS new capital budget is about $400 million per year. Almost all of that goes to building projects—HVAC, renovations, new construction, and core systems. Included in that plan is roughly $15 million per year for playing fields and athletic facilities—a tiny fraction, less than 4%, for something so important to so many people.
County Executive Marc Elrich, however, cut about half of the school system’s request for athletic facilities, specifically to defund the high-use fields.
The County Council’s education committee then took up the proposal. Siding with opponents of these projects, Councilmembers Will Jawando and Kristin Mink supported the cut, while Councilmember Shebra Evans opposed it.
At some point in the next few days, the Council will vote on a recommendation for the MCPS capital budget, and then in the coming weeks, that draft budget will be finalized.
We need a majority on the Council that will stand up for common sense. We will be watching the Council vote closely.
Data Shows Stark Differences
Over the years, MCPS has built both grass and synthetic fields at our high schools. As a result, we now have clear data showing how much usage each type of field supports.
The differences are stark. The school system’s own data make it impossible to ignore.
For competitive athletics programs, high-access fields provide roughly three times as many hours of play as grass fields. That will be no surprise to the thousands of parents familiar with canceled practices and games due to weather. Grass fields, no matter how well maintained, must be shut down during and after rain.
For community use, the difference is even more dramatic. High-access fields are available at roughly a 20-to-1 ratio compared to grass. Naturally, schools cannot prioritize heavy community use on grass fields without degrading them. These new fields do not have that limitation, opening thousands of additional hours for public use.
And then there is physical education.
Because of concerns about wear and tear, MCPS generally cannot make grass fields available for P.E. use. High-access fields, however, can handle that level of activity—and they are used heavily.
According to MCPS data, these fields support roughly 10,000 hours of physical education. Grass fields are not used this way at any meaningful scale.
So when we talk about cutting back on these fields, we’re not just talking about sports—we’re talking about taking away daily opportunities for students to be physically active during the school day.
At a time when youth mental health and physical inactivity are major concerns, that is a step in exactly the wrong direction.
Who Stands to Lose
This isn’t hypothetical. The first projects on the line are at four schools with clear, documented needs:
- Magruder High School, in Derwood / Rockville
- Poolesville High School, in Poolesville
- Springbrook High School, in the White Oak area of Silver Spring
- Watkins Mill High School, in Gaithersburg / Montgomery Village area
At these schools, the question isn’t turf versus grass. It’s whether students will have a consistently usable field at all.
The capital budget includes funding over the next two years to build these athletic fields and, at other schools, to replace older turf fields that used crumb rubber with new organic infill fields.
The Council should particularly ensure that there is enough funding in the next two years to proceed with projects serving these four communities.
The Known and Real Health Risk
Some opponents have raised concerns about the safety of these fields. Safety concerns are always taken seriously. Fortunately, there is no credible evidence of health harm from modern high-access field systems, particularly under current construction standards (organic materials as fill rather than crumb rubber).
With tens of thousands of these fields in use across the country, if there were harmful health outcomes, real-world evidence would be clear. Opponents, however, have no such evidence to point to.
There is, however, overwhelming, well-documented evidence that lack of physical activity harms kids, contributing to anxiety, depression, obesity and poor academic outcomes. That is not debated; it is one of the most well-established findings in public health.
Given that the benefits are well documented and the harms are not, the burden of proof lies with those who would restrict access. They must demonstrate that any risks associated with these fields outweigh the risks of limiting access to physical activity.
Montgomery County has already taken steps to address legitimate concerns about materials. During my time on the County Council, we adopted a policy restricting the use of crumb rubber infill. Today, MCPS uses organic materials, such as coconut husk, for field fill. MCPS has a clear policy, which this funding will achieve:
“New and replacement artificial turf fields will use organic infill, and existing crumb rubber fields will be replaced over time.”
With these standards, it is even more clear that the real health risk isn’t in the field. The health risk is taking the field away!
Equity Is at Stake
For many students—especially girls—school-based athletics are the primary path to participation. One of my favorite initiatives when I was on the Council was expanding recreational sports programs for girls, to reverse the trend where many girls stop playing sports during middle school.
Girls’ field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and emerging programs like flag football all rely on access to high-quality fields to maintain practice schedules and compete—especially during seasons when grass fields are frequently closed due to weather.
There are also many students who, due to physical disabilities, cannot use grass fields but can use these high-access surfaces. Special education programs and adaptive athletics rely on them to provide consistent, inclusive opportunities for participation.
School sports are one of the few truly equitable systems we have.
When access shrinks:
- Families with means will turn to private clubs and travel teams
- Others will have fewer, or no, options
- Communities that already lack field space will fall even further behind
Today, 12 high schools in MCPS have access to these kinds of fields—reliable spaces where students can play, teams can practice, and communities can gather.
Twelve schools do not.
Montgomery County should move forward with its plans: protecting access to sports and physical education while continuing to improve field safety through modern standards.
Don’t take away their fun, their exercise, their dreams, their scholarships.
Don’t take away their chance to play.
Hans Riemer served as an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council from 2010 through 2022.