Healthy Development Measurement Toolkit

Indicator PI.2.e Proportion of schools with joint use playgrounds

Download PDF map.

Data Source

List of San Francisco Unified School District Schools participating in the Shared Playgrounds/Community Hubs Initiative.  Accessed online on September 11, 2009: http://www.sfgov.org/site/mayor_page.asp?id=98076

Map and table prepared by City and County of San Francisco, Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Section using ArcGIS software.

Explanation and Limitations

“Joint Use” is a term used to describe two or more entities, such as a school and a city or private organization, sharing indoor and/or outdoor spaces such as playgrounds, gymnasiums, athletic fields, or theaters.  Joint use is viewed as a means to simultaneously increase opportunities for physical activity among children and adults and share resources to keep costs down. 

Although many states, including California, have policies to encourage or require schools to make facilities open to the public, thousands of school districts do not have established joint use partnerships to make school land and facilities available for community use. (http://www.jointuse.org/resources/joint-use-101/)

In 2007, Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed opening up school grounds to the general public in an attempt to increase local residents’ access to nearby recreational facilities. Following discussions between the Mayor’s Office, the City’s Recreation and Park Department, the Department of Public Works, and SFUSD, the “Schools as Community Hubs Pilot Project” was launched to allow the City to unlock outdoor playground areas for open, unsupervised use at eleven public schools throughout the city on the weekends and selected school holidays during daylight hours. 

The city agencies developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which assigns responsibility for program-related liability, details how partners will communicate with one another, outlines the responsibilities associated with the project, and identifies the entity responsible for each task.   This MOU and a description of the pilot project are available in the Center for Cities and Schools’ report “Joint Use School Partnerships in California: Strategies to Enhance Schools and Communities”, available at:
http://citiesandschools.berkeley.edu/reports/CC&S_PHLP_2008_joint_use_with_appendices.pdf (Accessed on September 11, 2009).

The pilot project ended on June 30, 2008 and following project evaluation was determined to be worthy of continuing at the district level.  Budget cuts in 2008 and 2009 limited the expansion of the program, but as of September 2009, eleven schools (one in each supervisorial district) continue to have a shared use playground open to the public during non-school hours. 

The Shared Use Playgrounds are not the only joint use facility between SFUSD and the City, however it is the only joint use collaboration with publicly available data.  As noted in the Center for Cities and Schools report, “SFUSD works with a wide range of city agencies, such as the Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF), Department of the Environment (DOE), and Public Utilities Commission (PUC), as well as an array of community organizations, such as the San Francisco School Alliance, the San Francisco Education Fund, and San Francisco School Volunteers. As part of these collaborations, SFUSD has agreements with many of these entities to implement programming and conduct necessary work related to local infrastructure on school grounds. SFUSD has also had a long‐standing relationship with the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, which gives the district free, priority access to its athletic fields and makes park space adjacent to school sites available to these schools for recess.”  The Center for Cities and Schools is working with SFUSD to develop a more comprehensive list of joint use facilities (including clear definitions) and uses in San Francisco, with anticipated completion by fall 2010.

Geographic proximity to the joint use facilities is just one component of accessibility.  Many factors affect accessibility including the presence of major roads, highways, buildings and gates, perceived and actual safety, hours of access, quality of park grounds and facilities, transportation, cultural preferences, etc.

Why is this a Community Health Indicator?

Joint use partnerships between school districts and local governments or organizations can allow community members and groups to use playgrounds, athletic fields, pools, gymnasiums and other recreational facilities after school hours. Joint use partnerships can also be used to open up community facilities to schools at a reduced cost or for free.  This increases the opportunities kids and adults have to be active, which, combined with good nutrition, is an important step toward improving health.^a,b