At the last Great Neck Board of Education meeting on Oct. 18, many parents gathered to raise awareness of the condition of our Great Neck public school athletic facilities and their impact on the community.

While Great Neck has great sports participation, the parents raised concerns about the conditions of our outdoor athletic facilities that are at times dangerous to play on.

Several parents asked the board how our outdoor fields could be in such poor condition, compared to neighboring towns including Manhasset, Herricks, and Port Washington. There was a large outcry over the need for improvements including lights, bathrooms, and bleachers.

I chaired the (United Parent Teacher Council recreation committee in the 2022/23 school year and was on the committee the year before, 2021/22.

Over those two years, we discussed issues facing our community in sports going beyond the condition of the facilities such as the lack of quality coaches, attendance at our athletic events, booster clubs, and how to better honor our student athletes.

Some of these are hard to change but investing in our facilities is an easy choice.

Sports can bring our community together. There are so many challenges facing our town, but our children should have quality fields to play on and we should not worry about injuries.

My son’s soccer team practices at John F Kennedy elementary school and the poor condition of the field has led to injuries from twisted ankles to broken bones.

We are grateful to have access to the fields all through Great Neck to practice on but given the field conditions his games are at Harbor Links in Port Washington. It would be amazing to see how much more community spirit could be generated if we had home games in Great Neck.

Improving these fields and athletic facilities so our children could have more games locally would raise school spirit and encourage parents to attend more athletic events.

Most of these issues are well known and are being addressed gradually due to budget constraints. I believe the parents understand there are tradeoffs that may be required but options should be considered given the number of events canceled or moved due to rain in the past months.

It was disappointing that rain impacted our homecoming events, and they were held at the Merchant Marine Academy.

I recently met a trustee who served Great Neck in the 1980s, Leon Korobow, and he mentioned that there was a plan to close many of the schools we go to today back in 1980.

He voted to continue to fund the schools which increased costs but set us up for the future. I think we face a similar dilemma today.

I implore the Board of Education and our new superintendent to come up with a plan to improve our athletics facilities and prioritize this work.

If money needs to be allocated share the plan so the community can decide. There is a path to excellence for student-athletes and proper conditions at our athletic facilities is something we should expect from our sparkling community.

I have submitted this letter also to the Great Neck Board of Education as I would like us all to work together on this as I believe sports bring people together.

Scott Sontag

Great Neck