The Abridged version:
Parents at Sacramento’s Crocker Riverside Elementary School say the planned installation of artificial turf on the campus playing field could harm children. Heat and chemical exposure are chief among their health concerns.
The school, located in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood, would be one of seven elementary schools with artificial turf in Sacramento City Unified, according to a district spokesperson.
New research on artificial turf has determined there are no significant risks, yet doctors remain reluctant to endorse its use.
Plans to install artificial turf on Crocker Riverside Elementary School’s playing field have stirred sharp objections from parents, worried about effects like heat and chemical exposure.
“Whoever drew this up is not kid friendly,” said Linda Mar, whose son is in sixth grade at Crocker Riverside, located in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood.
Sacramento City Unified, the district overseeing the facilities project, prioritizes student safety first and foremost, spokesperson Al Goldberg said in a statement.
“Our goal is to create a space that is consistently safe and accessible for students,” Goldberg said. “No option is perfect, but we believe this approach offers the most reliable, safe, and long-term benefit for students.”
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Construction is anticipated to occur from early May through August, according to documents on the district website. It would be finished just in time for the 2026-27 school year.
Along with the synthetic playing field, Crocker Riverside Elementary is slated to receive new hardcourts, additional playground equipment and a new shade structure.
‘Nobody’s going to want to play on it’
Renovations at Crocker Riverside are long overdue, according to Jessica Tudor Elliott. She is in full support of more shade and a better playground at the school where her son attends third grade and her daughter will start kindergarten next fall.
But the addition of artificial turf, Tudor Elliott said, would be more harm than help.
“I fail to see how it’s going to compare to living, breathing grass,” she said.
Among her reasons for objecting is the fact that faux fields tend to have higher surface temperatures than natural grass areas.
Artificial turf can raise the risk of burns, dehydration and heat illness, according to the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai’s medical school in New York.
And in a warm weather city like Sacramento — where temperatures around the start of school average about 75 degrees but can be as high as 91 — parents say they are extra concerned about changes to Crocker Riverside’s field.
“Nobody’s going to want to play on it half the year,” Tudor Elliott said.
Experts have mixed feelings
Dr. Beatrice Tetteh, a Sacramento pediatrician, said heat exposure is also one of her top issues with artificial turf.
“We’re in California. It gets hot,” she said. “We tell (kids) to drink their water. They don’t always listen.”
Other potential health risks, Tetteh said, include exposure to chemicals in the fake field materials. The school district’s plan to use olive pits instead of traditional rubber crumbs as infill between the plastic blades of grass may alleviate some of that concern, she said.
Research on the use of artificial turf is ongoing and of mixed conclusions. Most recently, a 10-year study by the California Environmental Protection Agency determined there are no significant health risks.
Yet experts on the research’s advisory panel were still reluctant to endorse synthetic fields.
“It’s not an emergency. I wouldn’t evacuate playgrounds,” said Amy Kyle, a retired University of California, Berkeley professor, during an April 2025 panel meeting.
“But,” she continued. “If I were advising my friend on the school board about this, I would say, ‘I would try not to use this stuff.’”
Tetteh said some ill effects may not present themselves until many years later. “We don’t know enough about it yet … do we want to wait and find out?”
‘The time to revisit … has passed’
Crocker Riverside would be the 12th school (the seventh elementary school) in Sacramento City Unified to have artificial turf, according to Goldberg with the district. That includes William Land Elementary, which has had a fake field for the past decade.
“If a sustainable natural grass solution were feasible, it would already be in place,” Goldberg said. District officials said a natural grass field could not withstand normal wear and tear given the number of students using a limited space.
Parents, including Mar, the mother of a Crocker Riverside sixth grader, expressed frustration over what they said was a lack of communication from the district. Goldberg said multiple meetings were held with the PTA, staff and school principal.
In an email to Tudor Elliott last month, Chris Ralston, assistant superintendent of facilities, said the project will be moving forward as planned.
“At this stage in the process, the time to revisit or significantly revise the design has passed,” Ralston wrote. “The only alternative would be to cancel the project entirely and reallocate the resources to the next ready project within the District.”
“If that were to occur,” he continued, “it is uncertain when improvements at Crocker Riverside could be revisited.”
Savannah Kuchar is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.