Is it ok for a site that has both church and school to have Wayspots on it?
The site has both church and school within the same fenced area. Both are active, it’s not like a church is hosted within ex-school grounds.
This is common in Australia, especially for Catholic churches.
Or are these legacy wayspots like the survey markers that were previously accepted but new ones aren’t approved?
This gets a bit complicated and much is left up to personal reviewers. The church is usually eligible unless it is inside of and owned by the school. Like a chapel that is accessed from inside the school building. If the church owns the school and part of it is just regular services then just the school areas are off limits like the playground and sports equipment.
In my experience - except in one case - the churches are not fenced in the same enclosure as the school, usually with shared parking lots, garden areas, and/or a business office in between. I have successfully submitted things in and around the churches proper, including unfenced shared spaces, while deliberately avoiding areas used as school.
(These POIs were added between October 2025 and May 2026, at a variety of different Catholic churches in California. The subjects were all artworks (statuary or stained glass), memorial plaques, a fountain with donor inscribed tiles, and in one case the parish hall entrance sign. Nothing that would specifically be for children.)
In the one case where there was not a fence to separate church and school buildings, I personally visited the site on a Sunday and figured out what areas were used for church operations. In this particular case, there were already 22 POIs at the site (I didn’t nominate any), 14 of which turned out to be in the school area (and some deliberately mislabeled to try to hide that - the school’s message board sign was titled with the very different name of the church even though the school’s name was in the photo!) - this was the subject of a thread here and I got those 14 removed, in the meantime three more POIs have been added - two in church and one in school areas, and I got the new one in the school area removed as well.
Thank you both. I understand the distinction now.
My biggest concern - which thankfully is no longer an issue - was the scanning of the Wayspots when they become PokeStops in PoGo. I felt very icky when there was a mission to video a spot that was obviously in/next to a school and deleted it.
Same. The key bit here is that the actual rule, like the single family residential rule, applies only to - not beyond - the boundaries of the school. I have probably seven or eight nominations (additional to the above) that are across the street from public schools, and three in a shopping center and an apartment complex next door to a school (same school, next door properties on both sides) but within the “school zone”, and all of those are fine.
I’ve also seen LFLs and painted utility boxes along sidewalk areas in front of schools (that are in game, not nominated by me).
It’s just more fuzzy when it comes to religious schools, as often there is not officially a property line to separate the church from the school.