The Baltimore County Board of Education is scheduled to take action on the long-debated, controversial Policy 1300 on Tuesday evening after modifying the policy's language to allow for community activities such as craft fairs and family bingo nights on school property.
Charles Herndon, spokesman for the county school system, said the board has spent the past month reviewing community input given at previous meetings.
"They had over 60 folks in the community who commented and had suggestions about the proposed revisions," Herndon said.
"(Board members) wanted to be absolutely sure — and the members expressed at the last meeting, a desire to closely and deliberately go over many of the comments and suggestions, and make sure that all the suggestions, concerns, comments from the community were taken into account," Herndon said.
The policy came under public scrutiny after the school board began denying requests for events — some of which had been held for decades — on school grounds, citing language in the old policy that said approved users, such as PTAs, could not "sublease or rent BCPS facilities and grounds to any other parties" in order to make a profit.
Policy 1300 hadn't been strictly enforced to that point, and while there was an appeal process that allowed for exceptions, many long standing community events were forced to cancel or move to smaller, more expensive venues.
A vote was scheduled to be held at the July 12 school board meeting, but members instead sent it back to the review committee to make further changes and review the language.
In the revised language to the policy, the school board "recognizes that school facilities are an essential component of the communities which they serve," and clarifies that the use of facilities only be prohibited should it interfere with educational programs of any type or be reasonably anticipated to cause damage to school property.
The protection of school property was one of the main reasons that the school board began rejecting requests for use under the old version of Policy 1300, with the school board citing the stress that it put on the facilities.
"We have to make sure when an outside user is using those buildings, that precautions are taken to make sure the building is able to handle the folks they get at the meeting, and there are precautions taken to prevent damage to the building," Herndon said.
"We've had instances where there have been damage to the building, or it would exceed the fire code and the permits the building has been given," he said. "We needed to be sure that that's taken into account."