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King Elementary students prepare a garden bed. The students get “lots of lessons from a bag of soil,” says Jill Costin in JCPS Nutrition Services. For instance, garden coordinator Andrea Wright (pictured at far right in the photo) asks the students to calculate how much planting material they need to fill the beds. |
Lessons are taking root in new school gardens
Students at many district schools are tending new gardens. These students are raising vegetables that may be served in the cafeteria, used in student cooking clubs, or even sold in farmer’s markets at the schools. Teachers are using the gardens as a new way to help students learn lessons in a range of subjects.
Fern Creek Traditional High students, under the supervision of environmental education teacher Joe Franzen, started the garden project in February and March when they visited several other schools to build garden beds from sustainable cedar harvested from a Trimble County farm.
Teachers at the schools attended professional-development (PD) sessions to learn “how to care for the beds and soil, what and when to plant, how to deal with pests and weeds without chemicals, and how to harvest and utilize their crops,” says Jill Costin, nutrition initiatives coordinator for Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) Nutrition Services.
The schools grew some vegetables from seed. They also planted seedlings from the greenhouse at Lassiter Middle, which offers the Environmental Education Optional Program. Using the Lassiter seedlings allowed the schools to plant vegetables that students will be able to harvest before the end of the school year.
Andrea Wright, garden coordinator for Nutrition Services, has been developing lesson plans centered on the school gardens. The lessons help students learn about the complete food cycle, from planting to composting to replenishing the soil. Garden-centered lessons also are being developed that can be used in health, math, and even language arts classes at all grade levels.
The JCPS garden initiative, funded by a Putting Prevention to Work grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will continue during the next school year, and many more schools will have new gardens by March 2012.
Schools with new gardens
Gardens at the following schools were created through a Putting Prevention to Work grant: Breckinridge-Franklin Elementary, Central High School Magnet Career Academy (MCA), Cochran Elementary, Engelhard Elementary, Fern Creek Traditional High, Foster Traditional Academy, Indian Trail Elementary, Johnson Traditional Middle, King Elementary, Rangeland Elementary, and Wellington Elementary.
Montessori students tend Peace Gardens
Kennedy Montessori Elementary launched a Gardening for Peace project last year. Each of the schools’ grade groups planted vegetables native to a country represented by students in the English as a Second Language (ESL) Program. The produce was used to make ethnic dishes on Peace Day, and the Kennedy garden served as a pilot project for the Muhammad Ali Center Peace Gardens initiative, funded by the Yum! Brands Foundation.
This year, Westport Middle was selected to receive a Peace Garden Grant from the center. The grant will help students learn about nutrition and will promote hunger awareness. Students will participate in all aspects of the garden, including planting, tending, harvesting, cooking, and donating fresh produce. Students in the school’s Montessori Program will maintain the garden as part of their environmental studies.
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Lassiter Middle renovated its greenhouse earlier this year. It installed raised beds, implemented a composting system, and became a self-sustaining program that supplies fresh herbs and vegetables for the JCPS Nutrition Services production kitchen. It also provides bedding plants for gardens at other schools. |
Students help teachers get SMART
A dozen JCPS teachers listened closely to a panel of experts explain how to use technology in the classroom. The teachers wanted to know the best way to use wireless slates—digital devices used with the interactive whiteboards called SMART Boards.
The experts were five freshmen who use these technologies at Western Magnet High.
The training session was part of a districtwide initiative designed to make sure every school has at least one SMART Board, wireless slate, document camera, and student response system (clickers) as well as a teacher trained to use the technologies.
“The goal is to get these interactive tools in every school and make the connection to instructional practices,” says Sharon Shrout, director of JCPS Computer Education Support.
The initiative has involved fifth-grade math teachers, middle school science teachers, and freshman civics teachers. The subjects these instructors teach are especially suited for integrated multimedia instruction that is enabled by SMART technology.
The students on the panel talked about the educational videos, photos, and Web sites they access through the technology. Students also can pass around and write on the digital pad during class, and their work then will appear on the SMART Board. This approach to class participation appeals not only to outgoing class contributors but also students who may be reluctant to raise their hands.
The technology “does increase participation,” says Western High teacher Melanie Santiago. “Some of the shyest students, they want to participate. It’s like something they’re already used to, like iPads and Wii systems.”
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Ramasamy Thiyagarajan and his daughter, Klondike student Vishnupriya |
Answers to last month's math questions
The answers to the challenging eleventh-grade math questions in the last issue of Parent Connection are 1. D, 2. D, 3. A. To review the questions, click here.
The first parents to send the correct answers last month were Lakshmi Karuppaih and Ramasamy Thiyagarajan, parents of a student at Klondike Lane Elementary. Other winners were Dale Hinkebein (Kammerer Middle) and Chris Phillips (Stonestreet Elementary).
Keeping kids safe: teens and parties
The following information has been excerpted from a Web site hosted by the JCPS Safe and Drug-Free Schools Office.
What should you do when you are hosting a party?
• Set ground rules with your teen before the party.
• Limit attendance and hours. Specific hours and a smaller group are easier to manage.
• Provide entertainment.
• Welcome calls from other parents.
• Keep guests in the party location.
• Never provide alcohol to guests under 21.
• Be aware of social host liability laws.
• Frequently walk through the party. Adult presence is important.
What should you say to a teen who wants to attend a party at a friend’s house?
• Set firm rules, and discuss consequences for breaking them.
• Send a clear message that underage drinking is not acceptable.
• Have your teen practice saying no to illegal activities.
• Make it known that you will call the adult host to confirm the location and time of the party.
• Make sure your teen has money and a cell phone. Encourage your teen to call home if he or she needs help.
• Have your teen agree to leave a party if it is unsafe because of drinking or drug use.
• Have your teen agree to refuse to ride with someone who has been drinking or using drugs.
• Greet your teen when he or she returns home.
YPAS to offer Young Actors Institute
The Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS) will offer the Young Actors Institute summer program for students ages 10 through 17 who are interested in stage and screen performance training.
Classes include Stage Makeup, Radio Voice-Over Announcing, Acting for the Cinema Camera, Acting for Commercials, Stage Combat, Improvisation, Intro to Design & Production, and Monologue & Audition Skills.
The program will be offered Mon., June 20, through Fri., July 1, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at YPAS, 1517 South Second Street (two blocks north of the University of Louisville [UofL] main campus). The cost is $282. (A $141 deposit is required at the time of application.) To register, call Clint Vaught at 485-6392 or send an e-mail to clint.vaught@jefferson.kyschools.us.
For information on more summer programs and camps throughout Louisville, download the Summer Adventures booklet. It's available here as a PDF file.
ECE peer tutors create friendships of a lifetime
By Hannah Wyman, a reporter for The Paw Print, the student newspaper at Pleasure Ridge Park High
It is no surprise that our Exceptional Child Education (ECE) Program here at PRP is comprised of many outstanding students. They are seen in the hallways every day, socializing and putting smiles on many people’s faces. But no one in the school really can see how special these kids are unless they are in the classroom with them. Peer tutors get the amazing opportunity to help the students with their daily work, talk to the kids, play games, and participate in other activities.
“My opinion is that this is the best class and [the most] life-changing thing you could do. These kids melt your heart and show you the true joys of life,” says senior peer tutor Maddie Ellis.
The ECE classes go on many field trips, such as to the fair, Camp Crooked Creek, skiing, the mall, and places to eat. Peer tutors are always invited to go, and most of the time they do. Peer tutors also celebrate holidays and special occasions with the kids. For example, last Thanksgiving they had a dinner and their families, as well as the peer tutors’ families, were invited.
“Peer tutors are the backbone of what we are trying to accomplish with our special needs program. They allow our kids to feel like they are part of the school and create lifelong friendships,” says ECE teacher Bubba Pfister.
PRP’s ECE Program is very different than most schools’. Not only do the students in the program learn their high school work, but they also learn the basics of having a job and simple functions of being an adult.
There are three classes that are based on age. You can stay in the ECE Program at PRP until you’re 21, and the kids also have a job that they take turns going to during school. Different peer tutors are assigned to different classes during different periods of the day. Peer tutors not only help them with their work, but they also go to lunch with them and have free time with them when they talk, color, play games, and do other activities. The students in the program love the peer tutors and look at them more as friends than tutors.
“They all make good friends and are nice. They are also always there when I need help,” said Quantrel Mitchell.
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Roosevelt-Perry Elementary educators made their own READ posters featuring students or faculty members. |
More students are reading just for fun
It’s great when students read books assigned by their teachers. It’s even better when students read for themselves—just for fun. Students who read for their own enjoyment at an early age are much more likely to become lifelong readers than those who don’t.
JCPS educators have used a range of innovative approaches throughout the school year to promote reading for fun. For instance, Jennifer Flowers, a fourth-grade teacher at Sanders Elementary, has been meeting students and their parents at the Southwest Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) on the second Saturday of each month. Flowers talks to the families about book choices and shares classroom reading strategies the parents can use at home.
When Flowers first started the meetings last fall, she called them the Library Club. The students soon came up with a better name: the Books For Fun (BFF) Club. Flowers says she has seen not only an increase in library visits among her students but also an increase in reading skills, a deeper understanding of both fiction and nonfiction, and a big boost in the students’ overall enthusiasm for reading.
Enthusiasm has gone up at Roosevelt-Perry Elementary because of a schoolwide project called Leaders as Readers: Hear Their Voices. Librarian Leah Slucher and technology coordinator Susan Lancaster started the program by asking each of the school’s faculty members to choose his or her favorite book. Slucher and Lancaster then made READ posters in the same style that celebrities have made popular. Students started asking about the books and checking them out from the library when they saw the posters in the hallways. The idea expanded to include posters with each class showing its favorite read-aloud book.
Then teachers began recording books as podcasts that can be downloaded onto MP3 players so that students can listen to them as audiobooks. Parents can visit the school’s Web site at http://rp.jefferson.k12.ky.us/home to download audiobooks featured on the library’s page.
“The audiobook has taken on totally new characteristics as technology grows, changes, and morphs into a new generation,” says Slucher. “As a child, I listened to books on cassette tape and then on compact disc as I grew into a teenager. As a teacher in a generation in which many students have never even seen a compact disc, I soon realized that we had to offer options for our students that were meaningful and made sense. Witnessing students being excited over enjoying a book warms my heart.”
Students got excited about books at Coleridge-Taylor Montessori Elementary because of a Read-a-Thon sponsored by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) as well as a schoolwide Literacy Week. It featured guest readers from such organizations as the Louisville Repertory Theater, the Frazier History Museum, LFPL, Borders, and the Lincoln Foundation. Students participated in a range of activities, including making and binding their own books.
In addition, Coleridge-Taylor’s Family Resource Center (FRC) hosted a parent luncheon that encouraged family reading. The event concluded with a special school assembly featuring a costume parade in which students, teachers, parents, and volunteers dressed up as their favorite children’s book characters.
These are just a few of dozens of examples throughout the district. Other schools have participated in book battles, held Dr. Seuss celebrations, created book review podcasts, and hosted well-known authors.
Grant continues partnership between the GE Foundation and JCPS
At every grade level, JCPS students have been developing advanced problem-solving and critical-thinking skills because of new, world-class curricula in math and science. These curricula have been implemented over the past few years with critical support from the GE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of GE, which began a second phase of collaboration with JCPS last year by providing a $10.5 million, three-year extension grant.
The GE Foundation provided the first Developing Futures in Education grant for $25 million in 2005. In addition to implementing the new curricula, the GE funding has supported a range of activities, including extensive PD opportunities for teachers and principals and fun student activities, such as Math and Science Family Nights and field trips to the Challenger Learning Center at the Academy @ Shawnee. The changes have resulted in an 18 percent improvement in student math proficiency and an 8 percent improvement in science proficiency among participating JCPS students.
The extension grant has enabled the district to build on previous efforts by focusing heavily on improving instruction, engaging parents, providing PD for principals, and supporting lesson studies and more extensive teacher training. The grant has also enabled the district to provide specific training to teacher leaders who were recommended by their principal and selected by the district. These school-based staff developers provide ongoing training, co-teaching, modeling of best practices, and coaching to their colleagues. Teachers are also receiving targeted PD from national experts, curriculum developers, and university partners.
In addition, employees at GE regularly volunteer in JCPS schools. These volunteers participate in programs that range from mentoring pre-engineering students to providing opportunities for elementary teachers to take part in GE job shadowing. Visit www.jcpsky.net/Projects/GEMSI/index.html for more information on the GE Foundation’s Developing Futures in Education grant.
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