Community Use of Schools Issue Mapping
With leadership and collaboration from recreation colleagues in municipal and provincial government, we were glad to support an in-person workshop focused on defining and analyzing the core issue with Community Use of Schools in Nova Scotia.
An online survey was conducted in Sept-November 2025 with 117 unique responses recorded. What came from the survey highlighted that whilst overall access was often there, key challenges exist in areas such as booking systems, access to different school areas other than gymnasiums, and with adoption or use of agreements between parties.
To dive deeper into the topic, 15-20 recreation professionals explored the core issue for Community Use of Schools for municipal recreation. The group sought to determine root causes and effects of the core issue, and began to map potential actions and priority areas of focus.
Continuing to move forward, we invite those who attended and others interested to join online on April 30th to determine strategic actions based on the information gathered so far. The session will be held virtually via MS Teams from 1-2pm.
If you are interested in joing on April 30th, or for any further information, please reach out to Lisa at
Background
For Recreation Nova Scotia, the issue of inconsistent, inequitable, or challenging access to schools for community use has risen as a key priority to address. Althogh not necessaruly a new issue, certain challenges have been exacerbated in recent years and with increased demand on recreation facilities the potential for improved access to schools for community use is heightened. In a planning session at the RNS Conference in Antigonish in October 2024, Community Use of Schools was brought up by attendees as a key priorities for the sector. In February 2025, RNS raised the issue when meeting the Minister of Communities, Culture, Tourism, and Heritage (CCTH) to bring attention to the issue seeking cross-departmental collaboration to address with the recreation sector at the table.
With the survey in late 2025, our goal was to better understand the challenges and differences in how recreation departments and groups can access school facilities. We are now looking forward to understand the core issues in more depth and identify strategic actions moving forward.