500 acres 426 acres
schoolya rds Transformation A strong partnership between the city and the School District of Philadelphia will allow green schoolyards to be created and maintained. The city’s school district is governed by the School Reform Commission (SRC), a state-run commission consisting of three state appointees and two city appointees. Preliminary meetings with the school district have offered promising signs that a partnership can be established. A successful citywide schoolyard greening project has not yet been established in Philadelphia. Individual schools have formed successful schoolyard greening partnerships with the school district; examples include McCloskey School with the Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corporation and Greenfield School with the Greening Greenfield Committee (see spotlight). Maintaining the improved schoolyard can be a challenge. Research indicates that, in the past, the School District of Philadelphia has required that the partner organization assume general liability coverage in perpetuity for any green improvements made on the schoolyard. Greening schoolyards citywide will enable the school district to offer students better recreation opportunities and bring down their stormwater management bills at the same time. 86
the first 500
By greening sites, the School District of Philadelphia—the largest owner of impervious surface in the city after the City of Philadelphia—would invest capital dollars now to save on recurring water costs for decades to come. In addition, state legislation indemnifies property owners from liability if the land is designated for recreational use. 59
Other Cities Have Greened Their Schoolyards Cities that have successfully revitalized schoolyards have done so through partnerships and initiatives backed by strong political leadership. Joint-use agreements—formal agreements between separate governmental entities that set forth the terms and conditions for shared use of public properties—have allowed for citywide schoolyard greening initiatives that would not otherwise have been possible. 60 In 2008, People for Parks, a nonprofit in Los Angeles, published the Community School Parks Report, which calculated that two-thirds of children and youth under the age of 18 in Los Angeles did not live within walking distance of a park or playground. 61 The report called for the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Unified School District to establish a partnership focused on improving children’s access to parks
and recreation. In response to the report, the L.A. City Council approved and the school district and the parks department developed 15 pilot sites to “transform schools in high-need areas.” 62 The L.A. City Council’s support of the partnership created community, public, and agency buyin. 63 Today, through this work, Los Angeles can increase opportunities for recreation in neighborhoods where there is little open available land, and the school district—because it is participating in joint projects with the city—has access to funding that was once unavailable. People for Parks was an essential component of the city-school district partnership. As a trusted local entity, People for Parks ensures that the needs and desires of communities and schools are incorporated into the overall design plan. 64 People for Parks, working with the city’s parks department, developed a summer program to teach neighborhood youth how to maintain green spaces. In Los Angeles, public agencies and nonprofits are sharing their expertise. In the process, they’re improving education and expanding green space. In New York City, a combination of high-level administrative support and community support was key to schoolyard greening. New York City’s mayor mandated that by 2030 every New Yorker should live within a