Stretched Podcast Ep. 16: Community Use: Counting and Sharing the Costs

Stretched
Episode 16: Community Use: Counting and Sharing the Costs 

In this episode, Trent Allen and Cheryl Galloway of Facilitron share hidden costs and policy gaps school districts face in managing community use of their facilities. Trent and Cheryl share their winding career paths into K-12 facilities and describe co-authoring a National Model Policy for Community Use of School Spaces after years of seeing districts struggle with vague, permissive rental policies. The conversation centers on a “cost recovery” philosophy — the idea that facilities are not free to operate, and that uncompensated community use quietly drains general fund dollars meant for educating students. They dig into real-world friction points, from the “tragedy of the commons” dynamic on shared fields to state laws (like California’s Civic Center Act and Tennessee’s nonprofit-only rental code) that can either support or unintentionally undermine cost recovery. The episode closes with Trent reading the National Model Policy’s core cost-recovery statement verbatim, framed as a simple, adoptable starting point for any district looking to protect its instructional budget.

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Stretched, a podcast hosted by David Sturtz of Sturtz and Co. and Mary Filardo of the 21st Century School Fund and the National Center on School Infrastructure (NCSI), takes listeners inside the real challenges and possibilities in designing and operating our nation’s public schools.