Editor’s note: With tens of thousands of San Francisco students returning to classrooms this month, The Examiner is sharing throughout August the stories of the educators, initiatives and organizations supporting them. Read the full series here.

When students arrive at Everett Middle School in San Francisco on Monday, they won’t see the nearly two acres of blacktop that used to be the school’s playground and physical education space.

The asphalt has been replaced with a nearly $6 million cornucopia of outdoor recreation and education features mixed together with stormwater-management systems that use plants, underground drainage and other unobtrusive tactics for preventing runoff.

The sixth- though eighth-grade kids will find a safer artificial-turf field, basketball courts, an e

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