The Baltimore County Board of Education on Tuesday voted to approve a revision of Policy 1300 that regulates the use of county school facilities, ending a long and contentious public debate — and allowing community organizations greater leeway to use facilities for meetings, fundraisers and other activities.

"I'm thrilled we're able to get this behind us ahead of the new school year," Superintendent Joe Hairston said. "It was an opportunity for us to demonstrate we are responsive and have taken the recommended steps."

A point of contention between the school board and the public in its previous form, Policy 1300 was cited when requests from PTAs and other community groups began to have requests for craft fairs rejected.

Language in the old policy said that even approved users could not "sublease or rent BCPS facilities and grounds to any other parties" in order to make a profit.

Though the language had existed for years, the policy only recently began being enforced. As a result, many long-standing annual events were forced to cancel or move to smaller, more expensive venues.

Community members and school groups came out in force against the enforcement of the policy. More than 60 people submitted comments at recent public sessions regarding the policy, and school system spokesman Charles Herndon said the board members wanted to be "absolutely sure" that community input was taken into account.

"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, and comments from the community were taken into account," Herndon said.

The board delayed a vote on July 12 to send the revised policy back to its review committee, which resulted in a shorter version of the policy.

In the revised version approved Tuesday, 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.

According to Herndon, the maintenance and condition of the school buildings was the genesis for the change in policy.

"We're stewards of the school buildings," Herndon said. "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."

PTAs applaud revision

In its vote Tuesday, the school board included a pair of stipulations directly pertaining to the buildings themselves.

The policy allows the superintendent to reject any request if the building or school grounds are deemed overused or are under construction. And even after the superintendent has approved an event, the board can revoke any approved application should it interfere with a Department of Physical Facilities project.

Otherwise, for-profit events are now allowed to be held in county school facilities, a change that local PTA leaders uniformly approve.

"I think it's great, and I think it needs to happen," Suzette Gordon, president of the Parkville High School PTA, said. "We're struggling. We struggled last year to put together an after-prom for students, and there's only so many fundraisers you can have. This will allow us to have a flea-market type event where not only do you have vendors who pay to come, you can sell food and concessions."

Kay Hardisky, of the Ridgely Middle School PTA, said she's grateful that the school board heard and responded to the community.

"They worked with us to come to an agreement," Hardisky said.

Hardisky added that it would have been "awful" had the policy prevented Ridgely from hosting its annual craft fair, which is the PTA's only fundraiser and has been held for the last 29 years.

But now they can go ahead with the planning of this year's edition of the craft fair, scheduled for Nov. 12.

"Everything that we've done for the craft fair has said pending approval by [the board of education]," Hardisky said. "Now we can go back and tell people we're on. We can communicate that to our vendors who have been worried to commit to us, so that'll be really good for us and allow us to continue this tradition."