A group of track and field athletes implored the regional high school committee Monday night to get going on long-overdue repairs to the failed school track.

“It’s really hard to build a program when you have to explain to your friends, oh we travel twice as much as all the other sports, or you never get to run in front of your friends or they never see us,” junior Mackenzie Condon told the committee at its monthly meeting. “It’s a feeling of invisibility, when you are never competing at home meet or home game.”

The high school track is in such poor shape it can no longer be used for competitions. The last time a meet was held there was in 2016, and the Vineyard hasn’t hosted a state-level track meet since 2010.

The school committee has been mired in discussions for the past two years about how best to upgrade the school athletic fields, which have suffered from years of deferred maintenance. Refurbishing the track is at the top of the list.

A controversial plan by a community group wanting to upgrade the fields with artificial turf was shelved last spring after a second community group came forward with funding and a plan to upgrade the fields using grass instead.

That project recently stalled amid legal technical problems as high school leaders and attorneys try to work out a public-private licensing agreement with the grass fields group.

Meanwhile, the track remains unusable, forcing the school track and field team to practice and compete on the mainland. (Track and field is a spring sport; in fall running athletes compete on the cross country team.)

On Monday night, sophomore Vito Aiello spoke about the isolation experienced by the track team.

“One of the things that is stressed to us is to build a community not just within our sport, but between all the sports,” he said. “And it’s really hard to do that when you can’t say, oh we’ll go watch your soccer game, you can come watch our track meet, because you can’t. I mean, even we can’t say we’ll go watch your soccer game because were off-Island.”

Parents spoke too.

John Packer said no home meets means the track team spends twice the amount of time traveling.

“You’ve lost your Tom Brady focus on the track, and we need to get back on that,” he said.

Bill Engler said the school committee should keep all the decision making power as it negotiates with the grass fields group.

“Encourage money, fundraising, we need it, but you guys stay in control,” he said.

Ann Bresnick said the track is more than just the money it takes to refurbish it.

“It has to do with experiences and memories and what this Island is really about,” she said. “So if it’s $300,000, that’s really nothing compared to what we would lose for not having a solution now.”

High school principal Sara Dingledy acknowledged that the delays have been difficult, but said school leaders have been working to have a balanced approach.

“We’re all really committed to making this work, the constant debate we always have is balancing short-term and long-term expenses,” she said.

In the end, Vineyard schools superintendent Matthew D’Andrea said suggested a the high school facilities subcommittee meet before the next full committee meeting on Sept. 26 to consider possible short-term solutions for the track.

The subcommittee will meet Monday at 5 p.m. in the library conference room of the regional high school.