Playing Smart changelabsolutions.org | kaboom.org 4 In many communities, it’s hard to find safe places for children and their families to exercise and play. Public schools might have a variety of recreational facilities – gymnasiums, playgrounds, fields, courts, tracks – but they often close their property to the community after school hours. Introduction School administrators point to various reasons for locking up their facilities after hours, including concerns about costs, vandalism, security, maintenance, contract issues, and liability in the event of injury. Most states have laws that encourage or even require schools to open their facilities to the community for recreation or other civic uses. Still, even when school officials are informed of these requirements – and even if they’re sympathetic to the community’s desire to use the grounds – they may be reluctant to comply, given the concerns cited above. The good news is that local governments can partner with school districts and other agencies through joint use agreements to address these concerns. A joint use agreement is a formal agreement between two separate government entities, often a school district and a city or county, setting forth the terms and conditions for the shared use of public property. In St. Petersburg, Florida, the city’s “Play ‘n’ Close to Home” initiative is using joint use agreements to help meet its goal of bringing a public playground within half a mile of every resident. The first joint use playground opened at an elementary school; the city agreed to maintain the 1.6-acre playground on school property in exchange for public use outside school hours between sunrise and sunset.1 In Seattle, the city and school district have implemented a more complex joint use agreement to centralize the scheduling of all school and city recreation facilities, making them more accessible and easier to reserve. In other communities around the country, schools and cities have partnered to build new recreational facilities for schools and neighborhoods.2 Joint use agreements allow school districts to share with local government the costs and responsibilities incurred by opening their facilities. Subject to overriding state and local laws, the agreements can allocate to local government some or all of the responsibility for costs, security, supervision, maintenance, repairs, and potential liability. Beyond simply working with schools, cities also have begun to explore agreements with nonprofits, hospitals, and local universities in an effort to increase the available resources. Although this toolkit focuses primarily on partnerships with schools, many of the issues and strategies
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