San Diego schools and the city have launched a pilot program at three campuses to try and settle the battle between schools and the community at large over waste left on joint-use fields.
The sites, Pacific Beach Middle School, Franklin Elementary in Kensington and Birney Elementary in University Heights, are using color-coded status systems based on reports filed by school principals.
When a principal at a pilot site reports pet waste on left a field, Samer Naji, a spokesperson for the San Diego Unified School District, said that field moves from green, or open status, to yellow, a warning alert.
Two additional reports while the field is in the yellow, move it to the red zone, triggering a 15-day closure.
Joint-use fields across the region are plagued by issues including animal waste left behind and turf damage from holes holes dug by dogs, which pose tripping and injury hazards for students.
Some residents also have complained that fenced school fields are frequently used as unauthorized off-leash dog parks by dog owners.
Heavy misuse of joint-use fields forces local authorities — such as San Diego Unified and the city of San Diego — to intermittently close fields to the public for weeks or months to repair turf and clean the facilities.
The pilot program prompted District 1 Councilmember Joe LaCava to call upon schools and the city to “get serious” about keeping joint-use fields clean and safe for students and the public.
Last year, noted LaCava, the field at Crown Point Junior Music Academy in PB was closed
due to unsafe conditions.
“This closure was motivation for the city to pilot a new approach to protect students,” said
LaCava, rather than closing the fields or banning dogs.
Within weeks of its launch, LaCava said one joint-use field was in the red, another was in the yellow, but the third stayed clean and remained green.
After a closure, the field reopens in yellow status for 30 days before being cleared to return to green, Naji said. But if additional incidents are reported during that 30-day interim, longer closures result.
City-installed signage on each field indicates its current status.
“Because these fields serve our students during the school day and the broader community outside of school hours, it is important that we keep them clean, safe and available for everyone,” Naji said.
Pacific Beach Town Council president Charlie Nieto said the group “has long supported
creative solutions to remedy the chronic deficit in parks within our communities.”
But he added, of the joint-use fields, “a few bad actors did not do their part to look after this shared resource.”
He’s pleased with the green-yellow-red system.
“Through the new warning system, our local families, pet owners and community members will still be able to enjoy these facilities, with some new accountability measures in place,” he said. “We believe that even with a bit of a learning curve, this plan will put us on a pathway to
additional park space that is safe, clean, and welcoming to all that love Pacific Beach.”
