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Next spring, local high school student athletes will have a new home field.

The Steamboat Springs School Board gave the final go-ahead to an artificial playing surface for Gardner Field late Monday night, approving a $250,000 gift from the Education Fund Board with a 4-0 vote. Board member John DeVincentis was absent and did not vote. Board members Denise Connelly, Pat Gleason and Jeff Troeger joined School Board President Tom Miller-Freutel in support of the field, capping two weeks of debate about whether spending taxpayer dollars for artificial turf is the best way to improve educational opportunities for Steamboat students.

"I see this as a good partnership between the community and the school district," Connelly said, referring to a pledge of at least $250,000 to be raised by community members. The total cost of the project is estimated between $450,000 and $550,000.

Gardner Field is the primary athletic field at Steamboat Springs High School. Supporters of the turf included student athletes, coaches, teachers and parents, who cited hours of missed class time for students traveling to extra away games this spring, indoor practices in a congested gym late at night and dangers of excessive travel on mountain roads in dangerous weather.

"How many buses going over the edge of Rabbit Ears Pass will it take for us to realize we should have done this?" said Miller-Freutel, whose daughter is a sophomore at the high school.

Opponents of the field did not argue against its value or use, but against using Fund Board money -- generated by a citywide, half-cent sales tax -- to pay for a non-academic facility.

"I'm not sure that this spending is consistent with what we told the voters (Fund Board) money was for," said Jim Gill, who served as president of the Fund Board for 10 years and helped form its bylaws. Gill said he "does not buy" the correlation between a new athletic field and academic improvement.

"I believe it is tangential at best," he said.

Drama teacher Stuart Handloff raised concerns about the decrease of theater and arts programs at the high school, a concern Troeger shared.

"We seem to be able to fund 'jock things' pretty easily," Troeger said. "I'm going to insist that at future meetings we address these issues (of arts programs)."

The field could be installed by mid-August.

Also Monday night, the School Board honored Soda Creek Elementary School reading teacher Ginny Osbourn as the district's Teacher of the Year. Other nominees for the honor were Strawberry Park Elementary School fourth-grade teacher Karen Good--man; Steamboat Springs Middle School sixth-grade social studies and Eng--lish teacher Sally Howard; and Steamboat Springs High School geography, civics and American history teacher Meghan Hanson.

-- To reach Mike Lawrence, call 871-4203

or e-mail mlawrence@steamboatpilot.com