 The Convergence Partnership supported the 21st Century School Fund (21CSF) and Building Educational Success Together (BEST) collaborative on a one-year project to advance joint use of public school facilities. Over the past year, the 21CSF engaged in three primary pieces of work to further the Partnership’s goal of increasing access to opportunities for physical activity. This included:
- Developing and implementing a targeted promotion and outreach campaign to educate and motivate school, municipal, and community leaders to incorporate health, community, and environmental issues into the planning, decision-making, and design of school construction projects; to participate in public school facility planning processes; to explore and adopt joint use policies and practices into their work; and establish educational improvement, equity, and neighborhood revitalization as priorities for federal, state, and local school construction investments. As part of this campaign, a concept paper was developed. It discussed public school land and building utilization in support of active living and healthy communities that explores and presents the rationale for joint use of school facilities. The concept paper set the groundwork for creating definition and meaning behind efforts to increase or enhance the joint use of public school facilities. Working with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the 21CSF supported nine state coalitions to work on policy changes to improve school siting and increase joint use within a rubric of schools as centers of community. Coalitions are now operating in California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
- Conducting a national analysis and synthesis of current joint use policy and practice to better understand the scope of the field today and identify model policies and tools that can be used by district and municipal leaders. The Center for Cities and Schools with support from 21CSF and other BEST partners produced a written report that reviews the state of joint use activity across the country, explains the key challenges and barriers to successful joint use, highlights some of the key decisions and approaches that make this work successful, and offers case study examples of this work on the ground. Accompanying the synthesis report are a set of model policies, practices, and tools that state and local school and government leaders can use to improve or launch joint use efforts in their communities.
- Developing and revising recommendations for including joint use policies and procedures in the new federal school siting guidelines. Support from the Convergence Partnership enabled 21CSF to actively engage with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on developing and revising federal school siting guidelines. The initial guidelines were heavily focused on environmental hazards and 21CSF primarily focused their efforts to ensure they reflect the many issues school districts weigh in school siting decisions to position joint use opportunities as a factor in such decisions. Final guidelines are expected to be available for public content from the Environmental Protection Agency by the summer of 2010.
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