Guest Blog Post: Rachel Pringle, How to Grow a School Garden

Rachel Pringle is the programs manager for the San Francisco Green Schoolyards Alliance and the author of How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers. She is part of our Get Gardening! event series and will be at VB on Thursday, August 5, 7:00pm.

When Parents Step Up...Watch Out

(Photo Credit: PreFund)

(Photo Credit: San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance)

(Photo Credit: San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance)

Daniel Webster Elementary School was on the chopping block; San Francisco Unified School District had slated several schools for closure and Daniel Webster was the third of five schools in the Potrero Hill neighborhood closing its doors. Just like so many other school districts, resources were diminishing, enrollment was declining, and schools were falling into disrepair. Daniel Webster, however, sits on a beautiful spot overlooking San Francisco Bay and was the only school serving a significant area of the neighborhood. If it were to close, parents would be sending their children further away and into larger class sizes. The local school would be gone unless something was done. 

In December of 2005, a group of parents of pre-preschool age children rallied fellow residents to save Daniel Webster. Working in parallel with the school’s administration and population, this dedicated group of parents gathered over 600 signatures opposing the school’s proposed merger with another remote school. The group presented the Board of Education with demographic information detailing the then dramatic influx of middle class families in Potrero Hill in recent years, and they noted the projected growth in housing and population in the city’s woefully underserved Southeast sector. The parents reached out to each Board member, developed a website, and caught the attention of several major SF media outlets.

Their hard work was rewarded when the Board of Education unanimously voted against the closure and merger. The Board of Education was convinced by the demographic information showing that Potrero Hill’s growing population could eventually support two elementary schools if the current families stayed in and educated their children in Potrero Hill.

And the parents did stay and they invested heavily in the school site. The original group of parents and community members formalized their initiatives and raised nearly $500,000 to revitalize two portables on the schoolyard into a thriving and beautiful neighborhood preschool. The school building and the surrounding streets have received a significant face lift due to the combined efforts of the community, the DW parents, and several local organizations that brought over 300 volunteers from various corporations to paint murals, paint the entire school façade, install sidewalk gardens, as well as install an edible garden on the schoolyard. And there is now an established garden program complete with a part-time garden coordinator.

Daniel Webster has become a vibrant community hub on the hill. It is also now a SFUSD school with an enrollment waiting list.

Our book, How to Grow a School Garden, is really about how to create this kind of community action. School gardens, as well as more broad school site transformations, are an excuse to become more involved locally. Counter to the prevailing trend of scarcity, when communities invest in their local public (or non-public) schools the change is abundantly clear.

Comments

[Jane]

Well shucks, I guess the system can work how it should sometimes. Good work, guys.