MARIETTA - Cobb County School District's chief of SPLOST on Wednesday plans to present changes in the district's schedule to install artificial turf at all 16 high schools. Those plans include moving Pebblebrook High School up in the schedule and releasing excess turf funds to be used to upgrade athletic facilities for the schools further down on the list.

Following complaints from south Cobb parents and booster club members at both Pebblebrook and Osborne high schools, SPLOST chief Doug Shepard said he has worked with school officials to revise the turf schedule that was presented to the board on May 12 and reported by the Journal on May 18. The new schedule will move Pebblebrook High School from Phase 3 of the four-phase turf schedule to Phase 2, switching it with Wheeler High School. But as for Osborne, Shepard said it's too late to move the school to Phase 1, since they have already broken ground on at least one of the four schools in the first phase.

"We have made an offer to Pebblebrook to allow them to take Wheeler's spot in Phase 2, because Wheeler has declined it," Shepard said. "They would rather not have their home football games impacted, they would rather play on natural turf for another season. ... They're (Osborne) already in Phase 2 and we've discussed with the vendor the possibility of changing out any of the schools that have been scheduled for Phase 1, and it's already too late."

After a lawsuit - which questioned using special local option sales tax dollars for turf - was settled, the board awarded a contract to the Marietta-based Deluxe Athletics and the district worked with the company to create a new installation plan. The new schedule changed the installation from three phases to four and moved around several schools. Phase 1 of installation, which began last week, includes South Cobb, Walton, Kennesaw Mountain and Pope. Phase 2, which the Osborne community was told would begin on July 29, includes that high school along with Campbell, Kell and Wheeler. In Phase 3, beginning winter of 2010-11, Sprayberry, Pebblebrook, Harrison and Lassiter are slated to get turf. And in the final phase, which will begin next summer, turf is scheduled to be installed for Allatoona, North Cobb, Hillgrove and McEachern. The previous schedule dated Sept. 23, 2009, had Pebblebrook in phase two of the then-three-phase turf plan.

In May, Shepard said the original schedule was revised to be more geographically balanced, a move he felt was fair since the schedule had been held up for so long by the lawsuit.

As part of a consolation for schools in Phases 3 and 4, Shepard said excess turf funds for those schools will be released immediately to allow the schools the opportunity to upgrade athletic or physical education facilities, instead of making those schools wait until their turf is installed.

Each of the district's 16 high schools have been allotted $800,000 for the turf installation, but Shepard said the fields will only cost between $500,000 and $650,000, leaving the extra funds to be used by the school for athletic facility upgrades.

But Osborne parent and booster club member John Williams said it is not too late for his high school.

"Unless you've physically broken ground on all of the sites, it's not too late," Williams said. "...If everything was pushed back four months, then keep everything pushed back four months. It should not be realigned. It's not logical. It's just frustrating. You keep the same people in the same rank and order."

Williams, who spoke to the board at its May 27 meeting, said he plans to address the board again at its meeting on Wednesday. Osborne's football coach, Troy Jones, and another booster club member, Richard Tinker, also spoke to the board on May 27, arguing that by moving Osborne back in the schedule, it would interrupt their fall football schedule, something Jones said the school could not afford since it gets money from the concession stands at home games to fund its other non-revenue sports.

"Walton can afford to not have their field installed now; so can Kennesaw Mountain," Williams said on Monday. "I've seen these fields, these fields are not terrible fields. Pebblebrook and Osborne - these are probably the two worst fields in Cobb County. If they do this, we won't have a junior program, we cannot afford it, because now we have to pay to play somewhere else."

Several Pebblebrook parents spoke to the board at its June 2 budget meeting, but said their need was not about the turf.

Roy Brown, a parent of a rising junior football player at Pebblebrook, and a group of Pebblebrook parents toured the athletic facilities about a month ago at a booster club meeting in hopes of making a plan to upgrade the buildings with the leftover turf funds. What they found was appalling - rusting and crumbling walls and pipes, and mold and mildew growing in the locker rooms of Morgan Gym, where most of the school's athletic teams and the ROTC program practice. The parents took photos of the facilities and showed them to board members June 2.

"Ladies and gentlemen, in regards to turf, I could really care less about turf," Brown said to the board. "But what I am asking you to do, is to not just turn one or two pages and pass it along, I need you to look at that book from front to back and ask yourself, would you want your children, would you want your children's children, would you yourself want to do anything in those types of conditions? We're talking about rust, mildew, mold, torn carpet, rats, snakes - we're talking about a weight room that a football team can't really use - but we continue to push on and we continue to go."

Following the meeting, Shepard spoke to the parents, who emphasized what they really wanted was the excess funds as soon as possible to start planning upgrades for the gym and their other athletic facilities. With the urging of David Morgan, who represents the school, Shepard worked out a new plan to move Pebblebrook up and allow the school to access its excess funds as soon as possible. He said he plans to reach out to the Pebblebrook community and Principal Zinta Perkins this week to start work on plans for the school's athletic facilities.