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I'm not aware of any public schools in my area that would allow me to, e.g., use the basketball court or soccer field after school hours or on the weekends.

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Have you tried? I've certainly been able to. And I'm definitely not alone in having used those facilities. I've used them personally and for ad-hoc sport events (lacrosse isn't exactly popular in the area I'm in right now).

Not recently, though I have observed locked doors and gates that make it pretty difficult to use. If your caveat is you need to call ahead to organize an event that's a pretty different use-case from what I'd like to do, which is to use them very casually and occasionally.

I've never called ahead or anything like that. There are a fair amount of people using them on the weekends, as far as I've seen.

There is one school that definitely is gated off, but that's because it's near a major point of interest and I can only assume they're worried about non-community members damaging the property.

That probably says more about the area you live in than the public schools.

Around here the grounds are not only open outside of school hours, but explicitly so (they have closing hours posted: 9PM).

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