Communities with limited public recreational space are exploring partnerships to use school property to promote physical activity in the community. School property can facilitate physical activity through recreation and sport activities during non-school hours. Common barriers to increasing community use include maintenance, operations, liability, ownership, and scheduling. State laws play an important role in framing local-level decisions regarding community use of school property. State laws relating to school liability and community use of school property are complex, and vary from one state to another. It is unknown whether state laws favorable to the creation of community use of school property facilitate increased use of school property. This workshop provided an overview of how state laws impact community use. It also outlined two different methods for analyzing the state law surrounding community use of school property. The joint use agreement coding scheme developed by the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Classification of Laws Associated with School Students (C.L.A.S.S) was principally constructed for research purposes. The Public Health Law Center for the American Heart Association has a practice evaluation focus aimed at furthering implementation of community use of school property. The session incorporated an interactive exercise to demonstrate various ways to analyze state laws.
