Petaluma Educational Foundation News

Casa Grande High School’s innovative Outdoor Learning Environment – OLE! Farm and Garden Project is on the brink of its first bountiful Spring’s planting season thanks to a substantial $5,000 Petaluma Educational Foundation 2012 Major Impact Grant, generously funded by Petaluma Garden Club and CGHS alumni, Sharon and Jim Kimball.

The Farm and Garden Phase of the school’s visionary and extensive OLE! Project is designed to engage teenage students in learning healthy nutrition by growing, harvesting and cooking their own foods, as a means to raise academic test scores and lower obesity. Fresh produce grown in the organic farm and garden section of what is shaping up as a state-of-the-art, regional showcase outdoor learning environment, will be purchased by Petaluma City Schools’ Food Services Program for use in the school’s cafeteria.

One hundred percent of the school’s 1,750 student population in grades nine through 12 will benefit from this grant, providing invaluable hand-on, interactive experience at a crucial time in their lives for learning how to make their own healthy lifestyle choices before leaving home.

“The goal of this project is to develop a quarter of an acre garden in the center of Casa Grande High School, bringing a healthy nutritional awareness for all students,” said Megan Donner, the school’s Culinary Arts Instructor and John Shribbs, Environmental Science Instructor, in the Major Impact Grant Application to PEF, that they co-authored last fall. “The OLE Farm/Garden Phase is part of a larger school wide permaculture renovation of the once fallow quad in the center of the school. This past summer, with community support we were able to break ground, completing the site grading and main pathways, creating the area for the garden, the outdoor kitchen, the amphitheater and two outdoor classrooms.”

The program has been carefully designed over the past three years to give all students from all curricula areas the chance to connect with the outdoors, learning about healthy and sustainable environmental practices. When completed, it is expected to be a model for other school districts to learn from and incorporate into their high schools.

This Farm/Garden funded phase will teach sustainable living through soils, local organic farming/growing practices, harvesting and cooking vegetables as seasonal dishes, as well as supplying the school’s cafeteria with fresh, organic vegetables.

Members of the Petaluma Garden Club and fellow grant donors, Sharon and Jim Kimball toured the OLE! Project with Donner and Shribbs, this February. The donors were able to see where irrigation for row crops will be installed, with the farm garden expected to be fully up and running and producing vegetables by this fall. “We are so delighted to be co-funding the organic farm/garden in this outstanding project,” said Petaluma Garden Club President, Leslie Goodrich. “It is so completely relevant and we look forward to returning for another tour as soon as it is up and running.”

Cafeteria staff has started saving compost materials and Green String Farm interns are poised to come on board as farm garden volunteer instructors to further inspire students that growing their own produce is the way forward!

OLE! is intended as a resource for the entire Petaluma community and the school continues to invite participation from all sectors. The grassy amphitheater, which will seat an estimated 150 people, will be available for public use. OLE organizers envision this venue for music, theater, dance, cooking demonstrations, and lectures. OLE will also be a place for outdoor classes for adults and children. For more information, see the Ole! Project Website.

Twenty two Major Impact Grant applications were submitted to PEF, last fall. Of the 22 applications amounting to $283,000 in funding requests, the foundation’s highly trained Grant Selection Committee followed a rigorous program (including short list in-person presentations) to evaluate its top choices. In total, 14 Major Impact Grants, including this $5,000 grant for Casa Grande’s farm/garden phase of the OLE! Project will have been funded this Spring  totaling $158,000.

San Antonio High School and sister school Valley Oaks provide innovative programs for alternative education to 175 Petaluma area students not suited to a larger school setting. The small, friendly campus that accommodates both schools is tucked away on Vallejo Street, in central Petaluma, offering students 16 and over an opportunity to complete high school standards at San Antonio as well as providing students in grades 7 through 12 a more individualized pathway through the high school years, at Valley Oaks.

While the campus is bright, open and welcoming, resources for the schools’ Physical Education programs have been limited due to the fact that there is no gym facility on site.

P.E. teachers, Tiana Griffin and Bob Klein have worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to provide students with an invigorating exercise program outdoors on the blacktop and inside regular classrooms on rainy days. While badminton, ping-pong, jump rope, hand weights, dance videos and even juggling have proved popular with students over the past few years, Griffin and Klein had bigger aspirations for their students.

“Spinner bikes offer students a golden opportunity for state of the art, collaborative cardio workouts,” wrote Griffin and Klein in their successful 2012 Major Impact Grant Application, to Petaluma Educational Foundation. A check was presented by PEF Board Member Oralee Bean for a $10, 000 purchase  of a fleet of bikes, this February.

“It is well documented that our electronically plugged-in youth today are fighting an ongoing battle with inactivity,” they said, pointing to studies that indicate brain stimulation through exercise.

“Spinning is an excellent alternative to running the mile for many of our students who are not sports oriented. Use of music to create an energetic, live atmosphere also appeals to our type of student.”

Petaluma Junior High School and Kenilworth Junior High School gyms have been outfitted with spinning cycles over the past two years, thanks to PEF grants and Griffin and Klein were keen to provide their students with the same level of sophisticated exercise equipment many of these teens will have experienced in earlier grade levels.

“Spinning is the kind of activity that generates substantial heat in a relatively short amount of time and one which students can blow off steam and help them sit through classes,” they explained.

The schools’ P.E. teachers plan to line the spinning cycles against the wall in the small, multi-purpose room. “We expect to see students riding along together, encouraging each other to climb the hills, speed through the straightaways, imagining themselves on the open road, hopefully engendering new excitement for road biking, that they may have forgotten about,” they said. “This is not just a P.E. program, but an opportunity to introduce students to lifetime fitness potential and long term healthy choices.”

Twenty two Major Impact Grant applications were submitted to PEF, last fall, after educators from schools throughout the city attended the foundation’s first mandatory workshops following last year’s announcement of a new TEC Initiative to fund classrooms of the future through technology.

Of the 22 applications amounting to $283,000 in funding requests, the foundation’s highly trained Grant Selection Committee followed a rigorous program (including short list in-person presentations) to evaluate its top choices. In total, 14 mostly technology-focused, Major Impact Grants, including the Spinning Cycles for San Antonio and Valley Oaks Schools, have been funded this January and February, totaling $158,000.