BOE to Update School Facilities Policy
Featured Stories, News September 7, 2012
The Gilmer County Board of Education is expected to soon change its facilities use policy. Under the current policy, any
“potential users are required to submit, prior to use of a facility, a district Building Use Application which must be signed and approved by the principal.”
However, the policy also states
“Extended use of school facilities requires a separate lease agreement, which must be recommended by the Superintendent and approved by the Gilmer County Board of Education.”
The BOE must now decide, though, whether or not it will update the current Use of School Facilities policy.
The decision comes as a result of several requests. One such request comes from Gilmer County’s High School Head Basketball coach Herb Horton, who will make a facility use request at the BOE’s next regular board meeting on September 11th.
At a Gilmer County BOE workshop yesterday, Coach Horton asked for a 14 day facilities use request to use the Gilmer Middle School gym as a practice facility for 8-10 year old kids participating in a Youth Basketball of America organization. The organization plans to use the gym this fall for a total of 14 days from 4:00 to 5:30.
According to Superintendent Bryan Dorsey, other citizens in the community have also asked to use school facilities. The problem, however, is that the school system doesn’t know which citizens should have priority over others.
Horton is requesting that the facility be used for the YBOA, a non school function. The school facility policy allows for non-school functions to use the school system’s facilities, but it does not define which functions should have priority.
Until now, requests like Horton’s were given priority, but with other members of the community requesting use of the facility, the BOE has dicussed updating its policy to define which non-school related functions come first.
On Thursday, the board discussed the following policy measures: 1) allowing school employees to have priority 2) who will be entitled to pay supervisory fees 3) if the organization is entitled to have insurance before using the facility.
In the meeting, board member Gary Hyde asked Gilmer Middle School principal Larry Walker how he felt about changing the board’s current policy.
“To answer your question, how I feel is one way, but how another principal may feel, may be a different way,”
answered Walker in the meeting.
Walker went on to explain that in his opinion he felt more comfortable with approving requests from school employees, such as Horton. Since the gym is not a detached building, he said he felt that employees like Horton using the gym first was less of a security threat.
“This issue being though,”
Walker said,
“Is if it is fair and it’s equal? What is the definition of that?”
As for the insurance requirement, Dorsey says one way school systems approach this issue is by allowing the user to purchase insurance through the Georgia School Board Association. According to Dorsey, this means that any organization planning to use the facility could purchase insurance from the GSBA if it did not already have insurance.
The board plans to begin reviewing its use of school facility policy at the next meeting.
Please view the work session in a video below.