An analysis of community use policies in Missouri school districts

Joint use or community use policies are state-, district-, or school-level policies that allow for shared use of space or facilities between a school and a city or private organization. For this study, we (1) created an inventory of community use policies within Missouri school districts; (2) analyzed the policies for content, and (3) identified district characteristics that predict the presence of a community use policy.

A coding tool was developed to assess the content of collected policies. Descriptors of 515 districts was gathered from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website. The policies were collected via district website or phone/e-mail contact and coded. Frequency of variables and a logistic regression to predict district presence of policy were computed.

Of the 515 districts in Missouri, 375 had a community use policy. Most (216) came from a policy template from the Missouri School Boards' Association or Missouri Consultants for Education (115). Only 42 districts had unique community use policies. Large or medium-sized districts were more likely to have a policy than small districts. Districts with higher percentage of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch were less likely to have a policy.

Making changes to the 2 main resource templates have the potential to improve many district community use policies. Future efforts should focus on increasing policies and implementation in low resource and small districts. More research is needed on implementation and evaluation of community use policies.