james s. wood / arizona daily star

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Residents around 12 Tucson schools will soon have new neighborhood parks at their disposal, if the city and the school district approve Tuesday.

Both the city and Tucson Unified School District will consider an agreement to open 12 schoolyards after school hours, on weekends and during the summer. Two schools are located in each of the city's six wards.

Eight of the schools already have agreements with the city for neighborhood residents to use school grounds, but the number of facilities available to them will increase. Four neighborhoods will get access to schoolyards for the first time.

Those schools will be Rose, Bloom, Dunham and Cavett elementaries.

At the schools where agreements are already in place, citizens will have access to a wider area, particularly ball fields and basketball courts.

During the summer, city taxpayers will be responsible for maintenance, lawn mowing, trash removal, graffiti abatement, and irrigation and playground repairs, said City Parks Director Fred Gray. The school district would continue to pay for all costs during the school year.

The total cost to city taxpayers for the one-year pilot program is $38,000, Gray said, or more than $3,100 per school. After a year, the two sides will reconsider if they want to add more schools to the list, keep the program at the same number or end the program.

The issue was brought to the city by Councilman Rodney Glassman, who had made it an issue in last year's campaign.

"Our community is severely under-invested related to parks," Glassman said, adding that in many neighborhoods there are empty schoolyards that are surrounded by a chain-link fence.

Calling the agreement "a natural fit," Glassman said he hopes the pilot program at 12 schools goes well, and that most, if not all, of TUSD's more than 50 schools eventually can be used by neighborhood residents.

Glassman said that previously the agreements were negotiated by the principals at individual schools, but now the district and the city are talking at higher levels.

TUSD board member Bruce Burke said he supported the program because it gave neighbors near schools the opportunity to use school grounds to benefit them when school is not in session. He said the agreement will allow the school district to save on security and on signage.

"We're going to start with 12 schools and see how it works," Burke said. "We're starting out with . . . a reasonable number. I have every reason to think it will work."

School district administrators did not return calls for comment about how much savings the district gets from the agreement. Gray said the agreement calls for Tucson police to list the schools as a "special check" and to drive by the parks while they are open after hours.

Both organizations have their own liability insurance, Gray said, although the agreement doesn't spell out who would be liable for what. Gray said he believed the schools would be liable during regular school hours and the city would be liable after school hours, on weekends and during the summer.

"It should be as simple as that, but sometimes it may not be," Gray said.

Mayor Bob Walkup said he had some concerns about costs but would support the pilot project.

"The notion of expanding parks for our kids is a worthy one, so let's see how it works," Walkup said.