School rental fees hitting Girl Scouts hard

PROVO, Utah (AP) - School district policies that require rental fees for meeting space is prompting some Girl Scout troops to get creative.

A Scout troop that met in Spring Lake Elementary until September, when school officials told leaders they would have to pay to continue using the public school classroom, now crowds around the tiny kitchen table in their leader Kriste Bennion's Payson townhouse.

Some Scout groups are resorting to meeting in conference rooms at businesses, in malls and even in fast-food restaurants.

''They're being quite innovative,'' said Barb Guy, director of communications for Girl Scouts of Utah.

Following new federal policy in the ''No Child Left Behind'' legislation, implemented in 2002, Nebo district is emphasizing its original policy to not allow nonschool sponsored groups to use the school buildings for free.

''In the past we've been very lenient. We need to charge for all groups,'' Nebo District spokeswoman Lana Hiskey said.

Provo and Alpine district officials said they have had ongoing policies regarding building rentals.

The fees in the three districts typically average around $30 per hour depending on the room. There could also be charges for janitorial services. The groups must be covered by their own insurance.

''We don't want the school district to assume any of the cost for nonschool activities. We don't want the cost to go to the taxpayers for these activities,'' said Provo School District interim Superintendent Randy Merrill.

''The whole world wants to use buildings for free,'' Merrill said. ''Everyone has a reason why they shouldn't have to pay.''

Some Girl Scout leaders who have been using the school buildings for years, free of charge, aren't happy with the change, saying the fee is too steep for Scout dues to cover.

The girls pay an annual fee of $7, along with monthly dues of an average $3 to $6, added with cookie money revenues, to support their meetings and activities, Guy said.

''We're really frustrated. The meat and potatoes of having a Girl Scout troop meeting is being able to do it in your school, after school,'' she said. ''Schools are ideally suited for us.''

The Baptist Church in Payson was accommodating but too crowded with the Brownie, Girl Scouts and Daisy troops - a total of 30 girls, Hayes said.

''It was very crowded and chaotic,'' she said, adding they are now meeting in leaders' homes.

Mormon church buildings aren't regularly open to nonprofit groups such as Girl Scouts, though stake presidents can make the buildings available to appropriate nonprofit community-oriented groups on a temporary basis, said Dale Bills, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Girl Scouts don't have access to church buildings because the church doesn't endorse the Girl Scout program and hasn't adopted it, Bills said.

Boy Scout troops, however, have full access to church facilities for their activities, Bills said. The church has partnered with Boy Scouts of America since 1913, and now sponsors 400,000 scouts, accounting for about 12 percent of traditional Boy Scouts membership.

Wait - wait! I thought that the BSA got special privileges from government that no other organization does? You mean the GSUSA does, too?

Faced with being required by law to allow either all outside organizations to use the schools or none, school districts that are in religiously conservative districts choose none rather than allow organizations such as Gay-Straight Alliances and such to use the schools.

This means that such groups must go to other organizations for support.

If they can find one.

The GSUSA (the GSA is a government agency) has gotten away from their roots some. The comparisons between them and the BSA on paper are different than in practice, too.

1) The GSUSA on paper requires a belief in God, but is more flexible in how they allow God to be referred to in their oath when compared to the BSA. In practice, however, I can't get a square answer from them for a question like "If a leader stood up in a training session and publicly proclaimed that they were an atheist, would they be allowed to continue as a leader." This is exactly what Darrell Lambert did, the Assistant Scoutmaster who recently got asked to leave the BSA (he hasn't been expelled quite yet, he's appealing as per BSA regulations).

2) Both the BSA and the GSUSA allow homosexuals to belong to their organizations. The BSA says that "avowed" homosexuals can't be in it, though, apparently meaning that if you publicize your orientation, you have to leave. The degree of publication that triggers this is undefined, and locally interpreted. The GSUSA says that they don't inquire on their members' sexual orientation, but that referring to their sexual orientation at GSUSA activities is inappropriate and can lead to a leader's removal. How they have exercised this policy in practice is unknown to me. Rumor has it that there are openly homosexual women in the GSUSA's national office, but I've seen no such person who's come out publicly. I'll bet that there are no openly homosexual men at BSA's National office.

3) The GSUSA teaches young girls that a woman can have a fufilled life in numerous different ways, which can but need not include being a homemaker and mother. This is in direct contradiction to the beliefs of the Mormon Church; a Mormon woman is pretty much required to be a homemaker and mother. This is the chief reason why the GSUSA has not been adopted into the LDS's female youth program in the same fashion as the BSA has been adopted into the LDS's male youth program. The BSA has a co-ed program called Venturing (ages 14-21). I don't believe that it teaches young women that it's necessary for them to be homemakers and mothers, either. But then, I don't think that the LDS operates co-ed Venturing Crews, either. Venturing nationwide is a co-ed program, but individual crews can be single-sex (of either gender) or co-ed.

The content of the GSUSA program at the unit level is much more dependent on the unit's leaders than the BSA program at that level is. A GSUSA unit can be run in a fashion that FReepers would find quite satisfactory, if you can get the right people to run it.

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