OK to play at school playgrounds on weekends?

Doing a little more research using different search terms, I found a couple of local articles describing vandalism at school playgrounds. The stories mention that the playgrounds are open to the public after hours and weekends (got my answer, although in kind of a bad way :(.) Ironically, I used to take my oldest to this school when she was a little tyke and some idiot burned the playground down just a few days ago: http://www.ksat.com/news/23006644/detail.html

I guess that the schools would welcome families playing there to at least keep the knuckleheads away during the day.

In the tiny town where I grew up, we had no public park. If you wanted to play on a playground, you went to the elementary school. You still do.

I’m in Maryland, and I’ve been taking the Firebug to playgrounds at elementary schools on evenings and weekends. Sometimes the playgrounds at the local parks get too crowded for his liking, and few parents think of taking their kids to the school playgrounds, even though some of them have great slides and stuff to climb on, and fields to run around on.

If you’re unsure, I’d just call the school and ask them.