Identify Policies

Key strategies and policy tools to advance racial inclusion and equitable growth in cities.

This toolkit shares lessons learned from California schools with successful joint use agreements, offering guidelines and templates for other communities seeking to increase access to school recreational facilities.

Lessons learned, templates, and agreements for joint-use of school grounds in your community.

This lecture series highlights school districts innovating outdoor education spaces with a focus on storm water management.

This agreement from Austin, TX is an example of how a school district and a city park department can specifies maintenance responsibilities for shared properties.

The Providence Public School District distributes a request form to parents and guardians annually that, once signed, permits students to attend walking field trips to outdoor classrooms located nearby.

A guide with real-life examples, best practices and practical steps to help agencies implement a wellness policy and create sustainable site changes.

Park walk ability scores and green infrastructure are used as programmatic and funding strategies for schoolyard transformation.

With funding from the U.S. Forest Service, Milwaukee’s Green Schools program reduces storm water runoff, transforms asphalt surfaces, and provides valuable shade canopy where children play.

Omaha Public School’s guide for reducing storm water on school grounds, including lesson plans for teachers and maintenance resources for administrators

Downloadable and customize these sample resources for joint use agreements between schools and city government.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection leads multiple agency partners in the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable green infrastructure on schoolyards and other spaces.

An example of how Arkansas tobacco excise tax helps fund shared use programs that benefit health and education.

National inventory of state farm to school legislation that can support green schoolyards.

Over the past 30 years, SPARK has built more than 200 community parks in 17 school districts in Harris County, Texas, including neighborhoods where no parks existed.

This action-oriented guide supports local, state, and federal officials in planning for health at all levels to address determinants of chronic disease.

This declaration from the International School Grounds Alliance (ISGA) shows how beneficial risk is an important component of schoolyard design and use.

This policy outlines Providence Public School District’s goals and expectations relative to wellness for the entire school community.

List of 55 priority actions including proposals for policy and practice reforms at the local, state, and federal levels, to help systematically scale green schoolyards.

This guide is intended to encourage partnerships between park agencies and stormwater agencies aimed at promoting the use of green infrastructure on park lands.

Data to help state decision makers incentivize and promote shared used agreements in schools to grow healthier kids and communities.

The Urban Biodiversity Inventory Framework (UBIF) is a tool tthat help cities make appropriate management decisions to protect and enhance urban biodiversity.

This report focuses on the potential benefits and unintended consequences of state policies specifically focused on Out-of-School-Time (OST) programs.

Based on a decade of data, this website documents the benefits associated with participation in and public support for afterschool programs.

Green schoolyards selection criteria prioritizes stormwater capture and equitable access.

This fact sheet introduces shared use as a strategy for reducing health disparities by creating equitable opportunities for recreation in parks and schoolyards.

An Arkansas state tax on tobacco funds partnerships that promote physical activity in schools.

A roadmap for the City and its residents to make Chicago a healthier, more vibrant place to live and work, including green schoolyards as a strategy.

This report makes the case that green schoolyards can be part of a whole-school sustainability framework that aligns individuals and departments to maximize the school’s teaching capacity.

Analysis and examples of state liability laws provide guidance for designing shared use policies.

This Wisconsin law provides liability protection for schools that permit community recreational use of school property during non-school hours as a strategy for increasing physical activity.

Analysis of an agreement that permits community recreational use of school property.

This guide provides information, examples and considerations for working with public agencies and developing partnerships with public schools to develop school gardens.

Advocacy tips for local policy change from the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

The D.C. Healthy Schools Act supports healthy school meals, locally-grown food, local wellness policies, healthy vending, physical activity, health education and more.