When the Bangs Dragon football teams take the field at Memorial Stadium in a couple of months, they’ll be playing on a new state-of-the art turf.

The new playing surface is just one of several school projects going on during the summer break in Bangs ISD.

“With any turf, over time, it wears out and it’s time to be replaced. We decided that this was the time and we wanted to make sure we did something that our kids and our staff and our community can be proud of and we’ve really hit the mark. It’s a really pretty field,” said Dr. Josh Martin, Bangs superintendent.

The installation of the new turf has been ongoing for about three weeks and is nearing completion this week.

“As technologies change, we’ll be the first football field in the nation that has a new crash pad technology that is supposed to help with things like leg recovery but also concussion prevention. Like we want to do in all our things, we want to be the model for other people and we get to be the model for, hopefully, football field technology,” Martin said.

A part of the new technology being built into the field turf is an eco-therm cooling agent.

“Rather than just the black rubber that is normally in fields, this has an absorbative property that will absorb moisture and release it. It’s suppose to cool the field anywhere from 20 to 35 degrees,” Martin said.

In addition to the new turf, new LED Lighting has been installed at Memorial Stadium.

Other projects and improvement going on this summer in Bangs ISD include:

An outdoor science lab at the elementary school
8 new school busses will be added to the fleet along with 2 Suburbans
Promethean Panels in every classroom
New teacher computers for every teacher in the district
Student response system for each teacher
HVAC improvements throughout all Bangs ISD Campuses