The entrance to the Chico Unified School District office on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 in Chico, California. (Michael Weber/Enterprise Record)
CHICO — Students in BLAST, the Chico Unified School District’s after-school program for elementary and middle school youth, have benefited from increased state grant funding as well as the hours they can use district facilities since the beginning of this school year in August.
As a result, extending programming time into the early evening each weekday led district officials to restrict access for groups not associated with the school.
For many decades, school buildings and grounds have provided comfortable and spacious places for clubs, sports teams and other groups to meet and hold their sessions outside regular school hours. Little League Baseball and Softball, Chico Youth Soccer League, and the Boy and Girl Scouts are just a few examples of groups that have historically benefited from this franchise.
However, it has now ended – causing some serious distress for those groups who enjoyed the relief.
Girls On the Run is one such organization. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based group, which has approximately 175 chapters in cities and towns across the country, serves more than 200,000 girls annually. Chico’s “council” – which the organization calls its local branches – includes about 250 girls.
Until this year, the group has used CUSD school facilities for meetings and practices. It’s not all about running, although that’s a big component; Participants train for three months and then run a 5 km (3.1 mi) event involving hundreds of girls from several cities to finish the season.
The problem appears to be the district’s decision to continue providing access to school facilities only for a later period of time.
“As a public entity, use of facilities must be provided to all groups and organizations uniformly, so the time change in the facility use procedure has already impacted some of our long-standing nonprofit programs for the 2023-24 school year,” Erica Smith said. Director of Communications and Community Relations at CUSD.
“Although there are no changes to our board policies (BP 1330 and AR 1330), the procedure for using facilities for ‘Class B – Nonprofit Groups’ has changed,” she said. “At the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, our district had to make A difficult decision to limit access to nonprofit organizations while CUSD students are on campus.
“This included students in CUSD’s after-school program. The only change in procedures for using our facilities is that Category B – Nonprofit groups must wait until 6 p.m. before using campus facilities.
That change doesn’t sit well with Claire Johnson, executive director of Chico’s Girls On the Run chapter.
“Why is it the district’s responsibility to decide who can use the campus? It should be up to the parents,” Johnson said during an interview Thursday. She referred to a conversation she had with Jay Marchant, assistant superintendent of instructional services at CUSD.
“It’s all or nothing. I say if you open it up to everyone, you give the family the opportunity to make that choice,” Johnson said.
Marchant did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday and Thursday, and was out of the office on Friday. The only comments from the district office came from Smith.
“Legally, school districts must allow equal access to facilities for all groups and organizations,” Smith added.
“There are currently no plans to change facility use procedures for the 2023-24 school year,” she said, adding that the district “regularly reviews and adjusts policies and procedures.” We value our partnerships with community groups over the years and will continue to work on ways to balance district and community use of facilities on our campus.
Johnson said she was particularly dismayed by the unexpected exclusion, not only because of his surprise announcement but because the Girls On the Run program provided a valuable service to the girls involved. She disagreed with the district, which described the group as an “outside organization.”
“My response was that we are not an outside organization. We have an evidence-based curriculum that schools have relied on for the last 12 years,” Johnson said. “We provide physical activity and social-emotional learning.
“We serve girls in a lot of places, and there’s a portion of our students who don’t get as many things offered to them as boys. We’re different from a club — like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts — and we’re not because we offer a curriculum.
Girls On the Run won’t dissolve; They will still be on their regular schedule in the spring, but Johnson said groups will need to meet in parks. This can be a problem for girls who do not have transportation to these parks; They previously did not need to leave their school facilities after classes ended on the day of the assembly.
Johnson cited a problem at Chapman Elementary School in south Chico.
“No one told me about the change,” Johnson said. “We were ready to start the season, and we learned about the change four days before the season started,” as Chapman’s group was unable to use campus facilities.
However, Chapman – unlike most other elementary schools in the area – benefits from having a public park adjacent to the campus, in this case a community park.
“Who else does this affect?” Johnson asked. “Girls On the Run is one of the largest community partners with the Chico Unified School District. We have been present at every one of their 12 elementary campuses and serve 250 girls each school year.
Johnson could not provide details, but credited Marchant with the claim that another group had complained about unequal access to campus.
“Someone is really challenging them. Someone said, ‘If you let Girls On the Run on campus, you’ve got to let us on campus,'” Johnson said. “Jay (Marchant) told me that.”
Johnson said her organization will need to adapt to the new rules.
“We will be working in the parks. We will continue to provide opportunities in the spring,” she said. However, participants “will need a parent or adult who can get them from point A to point B and will be able to participate.”
“This is a huge divide,” she said. Referring to girls who do not have transportation: “This is another thing they do not have the right to participate in.”