Funds to help gardens grow

Glendale schools will be a little bit leafier this year and next with the help of funds from a new state program to create school gardens.

Twenty-one Glendale schools received grants of $2,500 or $5,000, depending on the size of the school, from the California Instructional School Garden program, which was established in 2006 under Assembly Bill 1535. Across the state, the program will distribute $15 million for school gardens.

The Glendale schools were awarded the garden grants in the spring, but the school district decided to wait until this fall to make the money available so that the new gardens can be planned and coordinated, said Alice Petrossian, assistant superintendent for elementary education.

“We’re asking Facilities to at least help them, to make sure the gardens will sustain,” Petrossian said. “We have to know what will work.”

The board of education approved the $62,500 in garden funding from the state at its meeting Tuesday. Schools are permitted to use the funding to purchase gardening tools and supplies, or to pay for professional development for teachers on how to create instructional gardens. The grants are designed to help students learn about how food is grown and to foster healthier eating habits, according to the state Department of Education.

At Valley View Elementary School in La Crescenta, the $2,500 will be put toward establishing a garden club for kindergarteners through third-graders. The school will use a lottery system to choose about 20 students to participate in the club each trimester, said Cheryl Hamel, who teaches kindergarten and first grade at the school. The club will meet weekly during recess to plant and care for plants native to California as well as perennials. The students will also learn about drought-tolerant plants and what vegetation contributes to the environment, Hamel said.

Several parents will basically run the gardening club at Valley View after teachers orient them about what the school hopes to accomplish, Hamel said.

The gardens will brighten up two areas around the school — a slope that has large trees but is otherwise rather barren and a patch near the entrance to the front office, Hamel said.

“Right now it’s pretty desolate,” Hamel said of the slope that was to be planted.

Hoover High School will use its $5,000 in funds for equipment like gloves, wheelbarrows and gardening books so that students can plant small trees and shrubs, according to the school district’s public information office.

The gardens to be grown at Toll Middle School will be used in science, history and art classes, Assistant Principal Lonnie Root said. The school will use the gardens to teach students about plant reproduction, as well as to provide examples of historically significant plants, like cotton, Root said.

Students at Toll will add to an existing garden plot in the back of the school, Root said.

Schools have until June 2009 to use the funds, so some that are undergoing renovations, like Marshall Elementary and Columbus Elementary, will hold off on using their funds until next year, Petrossian said.