Absecon Public Schools broke ground Wednesday, Sept. 10 on a turf field at Attales Middle School that will benefit not only students, but the entire Absecon community.
“Today marks another exciting opportunity for the children of Absecon and reflects the strong collaboration we share with our city’s sports organizations,” said Absecon Superintendent Dr. Daniel J. Dooley. “I want to thank the Board of Education for their continued support in helping us grow—not only academically, but also through extracurricular opportunities. Through seven years of fiscal responsibility and creative revenue generation, including through our transportation department and the addition of new programming that keeps children here in Absecon, we are able to celebrate this day together as a community.”
The groundbreaking was attended by Absecon Board of Education President Mr. Eric Neal, Board member Mrs. Raquel Law, Absecon City Councilmen Alex Clark, Stephen Light and Mike Sykes, school administrators and several teachers and coaches.
“When I mentioned it to [Dr. Dooley] seven years ago, I was sort of half-kidding like, ‘Hey, let’s put a turf field out there.’ And we’ve been planning and saving, and saving some more, and finding new revenue streams and ways to be able to do this without a burden on the city,” Neal said. Neal said that the Attales field has been home to many sports practices, games and meets over the years, and the players and coaches could attest to the less-than-ideal conditions like dust and divots that existed previously. He said the new, and much-improved turf field will get a lot of use once complete. “It just gives us so many more opportunities to do really cool things for the kids. It will be a safe place; it will be a place where we know that kids can do what they need to do,” Neal said. “I’m super excited about this. It’s one of those things where when you talk about it you’re like, “Ah, that will never happen.’ But then it was like, ‘Wait, that might happen.’ ‘Holy cow, that’s going to happen.’ And now it is happening. And that’s pretty cool.”
Once complete, the Attales Turf Field will be utilized by Attales Middle School sports teams and physical education classes, as well as city sports teams like lacrosse and soccer. Additional parking for the Turf Field and the adjacent natural grass practice field was constructed this summer on school grounds in order to mitigate any potential impact to the surrounding neighborhood. The project is expected to be completed prior to the end of the 2025-2026 school year.
“This field represents opportunity—for our kids and for our community—and we are especially proud to bring this project to life at no cost to the taxpayers of Absecon,” Dr. Dooley said.
