Introduction
By compiling data from each elementary school in the Alum Rock Union School District, this report of garden needs provides the basis for achieving the long-term goal of not only providing fresh food for the local residents, but also connecting the youth and community to the land’s historical roots. With this information publicly available, we plan to initiate a dialogue that connects non-profits, specializing in food security, with Title I schools, to improve access to educational and gardening resources.
According to the Alum Rock Union School District’s School Accountability Report Card, about 84.69% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches.[1] With every school in the district receiving federal funding under Title I, we hope to potentially provide a sustainable solution for the younger generations to attain food security with healthy meals that exclude preservatives and fillers. Our goal includes fostering collaboration and open discussion between non-profits and school officials. We believe that increased transparency of public information for the lunch nutrition programs can further improve the health of a community that has long been at a disadvantage.
[1] http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ (This statistic is the average of all schools from the 2013-2014 year)
After contacting all 24 elementary and middle schools in the Alum Rock district about a school garden, we found that:
· 58.3% (14) of the schools have a garden in-use
· 37.5% (9) of the schools do not have a garden
· 4.2% (1) school we could not find out information
According to the Alum Rock Union School District’s School Accountability Report Card, about 84.69% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches.[1] With every school in the district receiving federal funding under Title I, we hope to potentially provide a sustainable solution for the younger generations to attain food security with healthy meals that exclude preservatives and fillers. Our goal includes fostering collaboration and open discussion between non-profits and school officials. We believe that increased transparency of public information for the lunch nutrition programs can further improve the health of a community that has long been at a disadvantage.
[1] http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ (This statistic is the average of all schools from the 2013-2014 year)
After contacting all 24 elementary and middle schools in the Alum Rock district about a school garden, we found that:
· 58.3% (14) of the schools have a garden in-use
· 37.5% (9) of the schools do not have a garden
· 4.2% (1) school we could not find out information
Alum Rock Union Schools with Gardens |
Ben Painter Elementary School shares the same garden with William Sheppard Middle School. This strictly organic garden is large enough for many hands to simultaneously work and does not allow the use of fertilizer. Students from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade all receive the opportunity to learn from the garden. The garden is tied in with California's standard curriculum for their science class. The educational purpose of the garden is for kids to learn about agriculture, soil, land, vegetables, and to provide produce for the community. The project was originally designated by the former Superintendent Mr. Jose Manzo in 2010 when the garden coordinator requested for a garden-based education program. Parent volunteers work the garden as part of their required hours of volunteering, and then they take the produce home. The student council also utilizes the garden to encourage students to begin volunteering at a younger age, in a monthly project where about 25 kids work in the garden. The garden coordinator even welcomes community members to tour the garden. No organization funded the project; all expenses came from the parents and the garden coordinator (Phan 2015).
Donald J. Meyer Elementary School’s garden is run by parents, who volunteer their own time or effort. They do not have any contact information affiliated with the school. The garden plot had been previously fallow until a parent decided to restore it for use. This garden had been primarily funded through donations. Students help on their free time, such as recess or after school. Occasionally, teachers will ask students to help if they are doing some type of project. Students normally don't eat the vegetables, it is mostly parents. Sometimes, school lunches will incorporate the garden vegetables (No name given for source). Linda Vista Elementary‘s garden is only used for the purpose of beautifying the campus. The garden is currently not part of any curriculum or community efforts. Because many charter schools take up a substantial space on campus, there is not enough room to develop a garden. At Clyde L. Fischer Middle School, the principal is the primary supervisor. However, a few Corps from the non-profit service organization, City Year, work to maintain the garden, which consists of ten 12’x4’ beds, a built-in irrigation system, and storage shed. It was recently developed in December and is currently having beds prepared for the arrival of spring. The City Year Corps, who work nearly full-time at the school site, 7:45am - 6pm, develop the project and work with the students. The garden is primarily run by the after school garden club, which 7th and 8th graders assist in weeding. Currently, there is no harvest, but in the past, the produce went to the community. With heavy involvement and assistance from City Year, the school received all their gardening equipment in a donation made by Nvidia, a local technology company (O’Neill 2015). The garden is not currently used in conjunction with any grade-level curriculum, and there is no current parent or community involvement. However, they would greatly appreciate outside volunteers, especially to help maintain the garden in the summer months, when many of the plants and weeds become overgrown. They currently do not have any seeds and plant starts. They would like to start a garden from the ground-up, but this may involve some initial landscape planning (Craig 2015). City Year in San Jose works directly with several Alum Rock Union Schools. The mission of this organization works to bridge the gap in high-poverty communities between the support that students actually need, and what their schools are designed and resourced to provide. Aptitud Community Academy at Goss has an approximately 1/4 acre garden is located on the eastern corner of campus on Van Winkle Lane. The food primarily goes to the students for nutrition lessons, but families who help in the garden will receive a share. Occasionally, the cafeteria will incorporate the surplus in the school lunches. Third through sixth graders are the most heavily involved with the garden, as these grades are given garden lessons as mandated by the Health Trust grant that funds Janaki's position. Teachers in grades K-2 are currently not involved in the garden. Janaki designs ecology & nutrition-focused lessons adapted from various resources (Life Lab, etc.) and tailors them to each individual class. A few families attend open Family Garden Time on Wednesdays and participate in seasonal Saturday workdays. Last year, there was a school garden team comprised of parents, while this year the participation has declined, they are working on initiatives to regain participation. Veggielution, a local non-profit and urban community farm, has provided the Garden Program at Aptitud, and supplied all materials, including seeds, plant starts, and tools, (along with assistance from other orgs) at no cost to the school for the past 3 years. However, Veggielution will no longer be able to provide any such support after this school year is over, when the Health Corps grant ends. The majority of VL's budget this year for Aptitud equipment has been spent on irrigation equipment for the long-term care of the newly installed Native Plant section of the school garden. As far as equipment for next year: more tools (forks, hoes, picks), seeds, and seed-starting equipment (germination trays, soil mix). The school ideally wishes to have a full-time garden teacher so that all classes have garden instruction at least once a week, with someone to coordinate care of the garden. Their current plan includes transitioning to grade-level ownership/care of various areas of the garden, and for faculty to utilize the garden more often with their classes. The current irrigation setup by the Alum Rock district has made it very challenging to keep the garden watered appropriately. The addition of the Native Plant Garden in October, which doubled the size of the garden, has created a greater need for weeding and watering while there is not enough people-power to take care of it adequately. Various organizations that have contributed workdays, infrastructure or plants for the growth of the garden include: KaBOOM (2013), Green Sports Alliance (2013), Our City Forest (2014). Pro-bono consultation for the Native Plant Garden was given by landscape architect Stephanie Morris. Currently, Veggielution and the Health Trust are the only non-profit entities directly involved in running the School Garden Program (Patel 2015). Other schools that also have a garden but we only received limited information or were unable to attain any further information:
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Schools without Gardens
Outside Case Study: |
School that we were unable to contact and are unsure whether they have a garden or not:
From communication with The Health Trust, we learned about their partnership with Health Corps, who have worked with primarily charter schools (not specifically Alum Rock Union, except for Aptitud) to develop a garden. According to a resource shared by Elena Blebea, a nearby charter school district called Rocketship, listed the prominent issues of starting a school garden as:
Elena also connected us with Mona Jaramillo, who worked directly with Rocketship Si Se Puede Academy as a Member of the AmeriCorps, an agency dedicated to strengthening communities by providing intensive service. Unlike most other gardens which are plots in the land, Si Se Puede’s garden consists of 22 planter boxes located around the campus, which were constructed by parent volunteers on a designated ‘beautification’ day. About half of them are 10’x12’, eight are 4’x6’ and the rest are 4’x5’. The vegetables harvested go directly to the students who worked in the garden. At Si Se Puede, it is mostly K-3rd graders who are involved in gardening, while the older students set great examples of environmental stewardship through their involvement with recycling programs and building items for the younger students to use on-campus. The school’s standard core curriculum is not used in conjunction with the garden, though they do apply social studies and language arts while working in the garden. The teachers strongly encourage the core value of a healthy eating lifestyle, which is evident in The Health Trust’s reports about Si Se Puede students trying better foods. The biggest challenge they have had finding more volunteers. Additionally, it is difficult to share the amount of food with 600 students. They are working on implementing strategies to encourage parents to adopt a planter box. Mona stressed that schools, when starting or maintaining a garden, must have staff support in order to be sustainable. |
What this means:
With each schools all receiving assistance from different parties, it is apparent that each school does not follow a standardized curriculum plan. Each garden has a different purpose, such as community building, increasing nutrition literacy, and educating a targeted age group. The most successful gardens have staff involvement and heavy collaboration between teachers, non-profit staff, and the community. Teachers must be willing to participate and incorporate the garden in their curriculum, but also work together to coordinate the management of resources and ensuring the garden’s usability for the next class. Teachers and parent volunteers do not have the time to keep the garden sustainable for years to come without the help of a specialist. To oversee this, the school must set aside budget for a full-time paid school garden manager who can ensure that students work in the garden on weekdays and the community can assist on the weekend. This position’s responsibilities include: community and staff outreach, creating and teaching curriculum, and supervise the maintenance of the soil, seeds, and water.
Aptitud, Rocketship Si Se Puede (outside of Alum Rock Union School District), and Clyde Fischer schools all receive assistance from outside non-profits and agencies, which have allowed each school to have a successful garden program. Because non-profits usually only run these programs for a year and expect the schools to individually maintain the garden thereon after, proposing to the district to set aside an annual budget for each school to have a garden is crucial. Outside
assistance from grants would allow for a flourishing garden, but despite there
being many grants for gardens, the application process is fiercely competitive
and can be a conflict of interest between school and non-profit partnerships.
Therefore, proposing to the district to incorporate a garden budget for every
school will be necessary to ensure that students will receive experiential
education weekly in the garden. With nearly half of the district’s student body
English-learners and 49% of these students scoring below proficient in science
standardized tests, this garden would allow Alum Rock’s diverse population the
opportunity to learn a variety of different subjects in a hands-on approach.[2] We hope to see that the district will approve
the creation of a sustainable garden program among as many schools as possible,
because non-profits cannot achieve this work alone.
[2] http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ (From the district SARC)
Overall, we find that these parameters would be helpful as a guideline for new schools to follow when starting a garden:
1. Is there enough designated space to start a garden? How many classes can use it?
2. Will there be a source for irrigation? Is it possible to hire a landscape consultant or garden specialist?
3. Which teachers want to participate in having a garden program and can commit to open communication?
4. Is there a non-profit with available funding to have a garden manager assist in starting the garden?
5. Is there a local high with students who need to fulfill community service hours?
With these questions answered, we can then evaluate which of the remaining schools are ready to start a garden program.
We hope to propose our findings to district officials and local non-profits, demonstrating the financial needs of these schools and strategize ways to source a district-wide garden project without reliance on a non-profit in the first year.
We hope that with increased involvement and dialogue across different sectors, we will be able to establish a district-wide network with the Alum Rock Community. Through this, we can standardize elementary and middle school curriculum and share experiences and resources to make it much easier for other schools to start or improve their garden. In the long-run, we expect to see all schools in the district should have the opportunity to provide a hands-on, experiential garden for young students to actively engage in learning and decrease the likelihood of encountering nutrition-related health problems into adulthood.
Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank the following people, who assisted us immensely in our research:
Elena Blebea, Supervisor of Silicon Valley HealthCorps, The Health Trust
Kirstin Craig, Americorps Member, City Year
Adam Gomez, Assistant Principal, Si Se Puede Academy
Yvette Irving, Director III, Alternative Education
Mona Jaramillo, RSSP Garden Coordinator, AmeriCorps
Sylvia Leung, Program Coordinator, The Health Trust
Maribel Medina, General Counsel, Santa Clara County Office of Education
Denise Mendez, Child Nutrition Services, Alum Rock Union School District
Kimberly O'Neill, Assistant, City Year
Janaki Patel, Youth Educator, Silicon Valley Health Corps
Tien Phan, Garden Coordinator, William Sheppard Middle School
James Rumohr, Program Manager, City Year
&
All the affiliates of Alum Rock Union School District we contacted via phone
We sincerely thank the following people, who assisted us immensely in our research:
Elena Blebea, Supervisor of Silicon Valley HealthCorps, The Health Trust
Kirstin Craig, Americorps Member, City Year
Adam Gomez, Assistant Principal, Si Se Puede Academy
Yvette Irving, Director III, Alternative Education
Mona Jaramillo, RSSP Garden Coordinator, AmeriCorps
Sylvia Leung, Program Coordinator, The Health Trust
Maribel Medina, General Counsel, Santa Clara County Office of Education
Denise Mendez, Child Nutrition Services, Alum Rock Union School District
Kimberly O'Neill, Assistant, City Year
Janaki Patel, Youth Educator, Silicon Valley Health Corps
Tien Phan, Garden Coordinator, William Sheppard Middle School
James Rumohr, Program Manager, City Year
&
All the affiliates of Alum Rock Union School District we contacted via phone
