The Swampscott Elementary School field is closed after dozens of shards of glass were found beneath the surface. The school said the discovery was made last month when a child was cut by glass on the field.
The field is part of the town’s $100 million elementary school project that began in 2024. Facilities Director Max Kasper said they tried to install a drainage system at the field, which is what first exposed the glass problem.
“It’s existing material that was on the site underneath the site. “We tried to do something good, and really did something bad by bringing it to the surface and now we have a major, a major issue,” Kasper said.
On Tuesday, Kasper showed soil samples taken from the field to the Swampscott School Committee. Out of 44 samples, at least eight spots had about nine pieces of glass in them. He said the solution will likely cost a lot of money, and take a lot of time.
“We’ve looked at a series of possibilities, obviously we would like to do something that is lower impact, and is not extremely expensive, but as we’ve talked about it, we think that we need to have a near-zero chance that there’s ever a similar injury on this field again,” Kasper said. “So now that we know exactly what we’re dealing with here, we need to take steps so that something like this never happens again, or anything more serious.”
Despite the closure, school staff said the students are adapting without any major issues, and they have found other places to enjoy recess in the meantime.
“The kids, it really hasn’t bothered them much,” a teacher said. “They would be more upset if when winter comes or it rains and its indoor recess. The playground has been the dominant area where they want to play.”
Kasper said the next step will be to hire a landscaper and figure out how to remove all of the glass from the field.
