It's a tradition in Baltimore County -- the annual visit to a community fair on the grounds of a local school.

You walk around the booths and take the free stuff. You buy homemade wind chimes and eat a sausage sub. You let the local pols schmooze you. You listen to music and greet friends.

Then you go home and hang your new chimes. The vendors go home with the money they've made. The sponsoring nonprofit group, which has collected rent from the vendors, now has money to spend on after-prom parties, scholarships or other worthy projects.

One part of this scenario will now change -- the location. The grounds of county public schools will no longer be available.

This is not the result of a new school district policy.

It's the result of enforcement of a policy that's been there for years, but not enforced, that says school grounds may not be used by profit-making entities.

Why enforce the policy now? Some speculate that it's the result of abuses that have happened, including the rental of one school parking lot to a profit-making driving instruction firm as a place to give weekend lessons.

School officials aren't commenting, other than to say they are enforcing a rule that's on the books.

There's also some confusion as to why the school system is allowed to contract with vendors -- such as yearbook photographers and class-ring companies -- while PTAs and such are restricted. The president of the Baltimore County PTA Council suggested that's because those vendors are approved by the school system, while craft vendors have relationships with specific community groups.

The no-fairs-on-school-grounds issue came to light in April, when the Ridgely Middle School PTA learned it could not host its annual craft fair on campus this November -- as the PTA has done for 27 years.

At Catonsville High, the school's craft fair will have to be moved, but PTA officials there said they expect to easily find another location.

One of the events expected to be the hardest hit will be in Perry Hall, where the Perry Hall-White Marsh Business Association has been notified that its July fair, one of the biggest in the county, will be the last one held at Perry Hall High School.

The bottom line is that while some oversight of what kind of vendors are allowed to sell on school grounds might be warranted, the dismay in the community resulting from enforcement of this rule appears to outweigh whatever benefit derives from it.

Whenever that is the case, the policy should be revisited with an eye toward making the rule more acceptable to the community.

If school officials choose not to do that, then they owe us an explanation of why not.

user comments (1)

user davidmarks1 says...

Very nice editorial. Thank you.

Posted 6:41 AM, 06.18.09

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