Macon maintains no for-profit use of school facilities
Macon County Schools decided last month to maintain a policy that had been in place — but until now had been enforced sporadically — that bars for-profit entities from using school facilities.
“The basic policy question is, do you want to allow for-profit users of your school property,” School Board Attorney John Henning said in a presentation to the board. “If you do, how are you going to treat them in your scheme of facilities fees?”
Although Macon County Schools has had a policy that stipulates for-profit groups are not permitted to use school facilities, Henning explained that there has been mixed application of the policy throughout the school system. This is partly because, although Macon County Schools policy did not allow for-profit groups to use school facilities, it is not against the law to allow for-profit groups to do so, and partly because many of the for-profit groups using school buildings are doing so for extracurricular activities that students take part in.
Henning and Macon County School’s principals gave several examples of for-profit groups that use school buildings such as local karate schools, individual or small group baseball and softball instruction, basketball camps, dance recitals and more.
“It’s a slippery slope. I’m torn, to be honest with you,” said Chairman Jim Breedlove. “I know there’s a lot of technically for-profit groups that are benefiting our kids; they’re learning. Like a dance recital, children are learning, other types of things. It’s a question that’s bothered me for a long time. What’s the best, fairest and most effective way to do this?”
Before the school board decided to double down on its existing policy, both non-profit and for-profit groups had been able to request to use a school facility by seeking permission from that school’s principal. The principal would give them a facilities use form to fill out and then it would be up to the principal to decide whether or not the group could use the requested school facility.
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While some school board members questioned whether a decision with such far reaching implications should be left to principals, Henning noted that North Carolina General Statute designates the responsibility of preservation of school property to principals.
Board Member Melissa Evans asked Franklin High School Principal Blair King if he was comfortable making those types of decisions.
“In an ideal world, especially with the new school and knowing how much damage usually comes from this, I want to say no to everybody,” said King. “Unless it’s [County Commission Chairman] Mr. Shields or the Macon County rec park that we have an understanding with, they’ll use the gym for games, we have an MOU with them.”
Still, Superintendent Josh Lynch said he wanted to make sure that the updated policy made things as cut and dry as possible for principals to give them an objective way in which to approve or deny groups using school facilities.
“Oftentimes, they want to be good stewards of the space and they have relationships with individuals, and they see that it can benefit kids, so it can leave it up to some gray area,” said Lynch. “I feel as though, moving forward, it needs to be cut and dry for principals. If this is the policy that we’re going to stick with, then that will just be enforced across the district, and they will be able to abide by that.”
“So essentially, what you’re proposing is just what we have and then explicitly calling out that for-profit is not allowed,” said Board Member Hilary Wilkes.
Wilkes asked board members and administration whether it would be beneficial to make an addendum to the policy that would allow the school board to approve special cases for for-profit groups to use school facilities.
“Do we need a line in there that maybe allows for, unless the determination of the majority of the board, that way if something intriguing was to come along then [we could approve it]?” Wilkes asked.
Ultimately the board decided not to make room for special exceptions.
“I think sometimes you run the risk of more gray area,” said Lynch. “If it’s the pleasure of the board to allow for-profit to occur, then you know that takes that off the backs of the principals and then we have the protocol and the procedure in place that will allow it.”
Henning also presented some legal reasons that the school system may want to maintain and enforce no for-profit groups using school property — one of which is the Umstead Act.
The Umstead Act, originally passed in 1939 was enacted by the North Carolina legislature to prevent state-owned agencies from selling merchandise in competition with private merchants. In other words, to prevent the government from competing with its taxpaying citizens. Several exemptions were made in the original act including the North Carolina School for the Blind. In 1973 it was amended again creating exemptions for all campuses of the University of North Carolina System.
“You’re subject to the Umstead Act, all North Carolina school systems are and it’s a state law that says government entities can’t compete with local businesses,” Henning explained. “Counties and municipalities are exempt from that, but it leaves community colleges, school systems largely covered by it and one of the specific examples of what competition would look like is renting out facilities.”
Highlands School received its own special exemption from the Umstead Act in one of several revisions to the law, but will still be covered by the updated, district-wide policy that bars for-profit groups from using school facilities.
“What I would like to see happen is that this is communicated clearly to all of the schools so that it’s [uniform] across the board,” said Board Member Diedre Breeden.
With unanimous approval from the board, the policy has been restructured to include stipulations against modifications, improvements or alterations to school property, and display of materials that are vulgar, indecent or obscene. It also now calls for facility use agreement for any groups using school facilities and liability relief for the school system.
For-profit entities will not be allowed to use school facilities, and non-profit groups that use the school facilities will still have to pay custodial and operational costs incurred by the usage.
