QUESTION FAKE GRASS in LGUSD.

March 2, 2022 News Flash Fisher, Lex, and Blossom Hill community members, were you feeling comfortably in the clear?   Were you under the impression only Van Meter and Daves Avenue elementary school communities were at any real risk of an artificial turf field? Time to engage in the cause. Artificial turf fields are now being explored for ALL FIVE LGUSD schools: Fisher Middle School Blossom Hill Elementary Lexington Elementary Daves Avenue Elementary Louise Van Meter Elementary While there is not sufficient funding to install artificial turf fields at all 5 sites at the moment, it is unclear which of the 5 existing natural grass fields are at highest risk of being killed off in this first round of renovations. The district will use this present exploration process to inform its current and future priorities.  When will a decision be made and by whom? At the 4/21/2022 LGUSD board meeting, the trustees will be presented with some version of the collected input and a...

Image from  socialmediaweek.org For more info, join the " Los Gatos Community Discussion: Artificial Turf on LGUSD fields ” Facebook Group or email questionplasticgrass@gmail.com  

Share your input with the decision-makers, the LGUSD Board of Trustees. Images from lgusd.org Implore LGUSD to do these 2 things: Keep artificial turf OFF elementary school campuses ENTIRELY. Rescind the conclusion from the November 2021 district staff report that artificial turf is safe for use on school campuses.  This conclusion can not be drawn from the evidence available.  There remain an abundance of serious causes for concern.  Even California's Department of Toxic Substances Control is questioning the safety of artificial turf including versions NOT made with recycled tires researching artificial turf as part of its 2021-2023 Priority Product Work Plan. LGUSD has NOT sufficiently addressed artificial turf safety concerns by proposing to use a version made without recycled tires. Take action here .

Background image from FairWarning Attention supporters The petition below was started 11-12-2021 and was closed 1-24-2022.   Please sign our newer petition at https://www.change.org/NoPlasticTurfLGUSD , even if you signed the petition below.   Why?  Because there's reason to be concerned the petition below may have been misconstrued by leadership as primarily representing opposition to tire crumb rubber infill, even though LGUSD, from the start, has been proposing to use an alternative infill product. Thank you for your support!      Backgrounder Los Gatos Union School District is on the verge of making significant changes to its elementary school campus landscapes with regard to play fields, classroom courtyards and outdoor play spaces, including one specifically for kindergarteners. Artificial turf is being considered for many of these surfaces. The district management staff have concluded, without sufficient evidence, that artificial tu...

To conserve water costs, should we rob kids of equitable access to nature?   Certainly given increasingly-dense urban housing in Los Gatos, not every child's family is afforded their own private land from which to benefit from daily exposure to nature.   As a community working together to share natural resources, is THE place to severely restrict water the shared field? A field that may serve as the only regular daily exposure to nature that hundreds of our kids in dense, urban developments get? No. This is wrong. This constitutes an equity issue. LGUSD Equity Action Team and the many other Los Gatos community members that value equity, it's time to be an upstander for those children with less privilege. A tweet from LGUSD's superintendent about the district's commitment to equity. Elementary school play fields and public parks are absolutely the outdoor green spaces that make sense to judiciously water. In fact, this could very well be part of the rationale San Jos...

LGUSD boasts about its environmental stewardship successes. The incongruence of using plastic grass after all the other progress being made in the district is glaring, embarrassing, and baffling. Daves Avenue Green Team kids , what do you think about (or do you even know about) the plans to cover portions of your campus with surfacing that is "green" only in color? Now's your chance to learn about eco issues in your immediate world and get active.