Growing Together: Open Forum

Hi All,

I am in Northern VA and have been volunteering as the school garden coordinator at my daughter's elementary school for the last 6 years. When I started there was no one running it and now it is a beautiful, useable space. There are many volunteers that come out to help maintain it and more and more teachers come out with their class to use the space every year.  However, there hasn't been anyone else, volunteer or teacher, who has been willing to take on part of the garden responsibilities. I think this is very common in school gardens and why the success of them comes and goes every few years depending on the volunteers. I would like to change this in our county, or at least at our school, and am looking for ways to fund a site based school garden coordinator. 

Here are my questions:
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job?
2. How is your job funded?
3. How many hours/week is the position?
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden?

Thank you so much! I'm looking forward to hearing from others,
Cortney

------------------------------
Cortney Dillon
3015804186
------------------------------

Cortney, I live in Sacramento, CA. I am experiencing the same issue. I just became a full time volunteer at a public elementary school (low income) that I taught at for the past 23 years. The garden has been functioning for 25 years and I have been the main coordinator for 23, creating and doing garden lessons during my prep and lunch, writing grants and getting donations. I just retired in June as a special education teacher and enjoy this but not sure how long I want to commit to this. I want to create a fund or endowment to be able to hand this over to a paid person (separate from district funds), with some parent volunteers. I see other schools that have been successful with this model. Most of them are getting their monies from grants. Figure out your needs and start in your community. At my school, I do 15 half hour classes a week (three full days with time in between classes to set up). Taking care of our quarter acre garden, planning lessons, prepping for lessons, shopping and grant writing is about 5 hours.  I would like to start with at least a 10 hours a week paid person.

------------------------------
Evelyn Margolin
------------------------------

Hi Evelyn,

Thank you so much for replying. Kudos to you for keeping your school garden going for 23 years during your planning and lunch time. That is amazing and I'm sure the students are so grateful.  I am also looking into grants to fund a position at our school, but am not familiar with grant writing and concerned that it will only fund the position for one year.  I appreciate you breaking down the hours that you work and how much time you put in for prep, shopping and grant writing. Is that 5 hours/week? Do you work with all the classes in the building or only the ones that have an interested teacher? And how come on a 10 hour/week paid person. Seems like you need at least 20 hours.

Thank you,
Cortney

------------------------------
Cortney Dillon
School Garden Coordinator
Leesburg, VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-03-2022 06:13:47 PM
From: Evelyn Margolin
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Cortney, I live in Sacramento, CA. I am experiencing the same issue. I just became a full time volunteer at a public elementary school (low income) that I taught at for the past 23 years. The garden has been functioning for 25 years and I have been the main coordinator for 23, creating and doing garden lessons during my prep and lunch, writing grants and getting donations. I just retired in June as a special education teacher and enjoy this but not sure how long I want to commit to this. I want to create a fund or endowment to be able to hand this over to a paid person (separate from district funds), with some parent volunteers. I see other schools that have been successful with this model. Most of them are getting their monies from grants. Figure out your needs and start in your community. At my school, I do 15 half hour classes a week (three full days with time in between classes to set up). Taking care of our quarter acre garden, planning lessons, prepping for lessons, shopping and grant writing is about 5 hours.  I would like to start with at least a 10 hours a week paid person.

------------------------------
Evelyn Margolin
------------------------------

Hello Cortney,

I am a volunteer coordinator of a garden program at an inner city school in Dayton, OH.  
This is my 3rd year.  My program is a little different as it's called THE TEA PROJECT and focuses
on tea gardening but there also is a hoop house and lots of raised beds for veggies and such.
It is VERY HARD to get volunteers on a regular basis and with the skills needed.  The hoop house
needs access to water and an irrigation system and, of course, all the other things.

At my school there is a long established community services agency that partners with the 
school and runs an after school program and a summer camp. They have PAID staff and one
person that takes care of some of the garden needs but also is responsible for running the after
school program, writing grants and so much more that her time to actually maintain the garden
beds and create outdoor curriculum for teachers (my dream!) is limited.  I am going to listen in to
the USDA grant lecture coming up to help us write grants.  These are monies that I believe could
be used for staff and training and big implementation needs (water access).  I could possible run
the grant through the Community Agency and avoid lots of difficulty with money in a public system.

Do you have a Community Services agency in your area?  Is there an inner city farm?  These
make great partners and may solve part of the lack.  Check out the USDA grants!  Good luck!
Janet

------------------------------
janet Lawson
------------------------------

Hi,

I was too was a volunteer at my daughter's school and transformed our garden to what it is today. 
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? - I get paid and it is my only job. I fall under the Classified and not certificated. My official position is "school garden specialist"
2. How is your job funded? The PFC funds my position but I get paid through the school district.
3. How many hours/week is the position? I have 15 hours a week at one school and just picked up 3 hours a week at another school.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with classes for about 5 hours a week and maintain the garden for 10 hours. My other 3 hours at the other school, is overseeing the garden program by educating the parent volunteers so they can teach gardening. I am hoping that they will increase my hours next year because I am putting in way too many hours (planning etc) for this school!



------------------------------
ziva santop
------------------------------

Hello Courtney,

I live in Charleston SC as a paid garden teacher and my pay comes from the county and has been that way for the past 3 years.  We also have 14 classes a week lasting 50 minutes each. We've had a garden at this school for at least 25 years and I'm hoping to continue in our new building next year. All of our funding and garden supplies come from County grants, Donor'sChoose, Lowe's, Home Depot and local supermarkets. We also do a fund raisers, which the children do through their art work and sell them. I love to cook, so we sell breakfast to our faculty as well which has been very helpful to our garden. I'm trying to get more assistance from parents during the summer months, otherwise there'll be no one else to tend to it.  Hope this helps

------------------------------
Shella Moritz
Macolm C. Hursey Elementary
N. Charleston SC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2022 05:01:11 PM
From: ziva santop
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hi,

I was too was a volunteer at my daughter's school and transformed our garden to what it is today. 
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? - I get paid and it is my only job. I fall under the Classified and not certificated. My official position is "school garden specialist"
2. How is your job funded? The PFC funds my position but I get paid through the school district.
3. How many hours/week is the position? I have 15 hours a week at one school and just picked up 3 hours a week at another school.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with classes for about 5 hours a week and maintain the garden for 10 hours. My other 3 hours at the other school, is overseeing the garden program by educating the parent volunteers so they can teach gardening. I am hoping that they will increase my hours next year because I am putting in way too many hours (planning etc) for this school!



------------------------------
ziva santop
------------------------------

Good morning,
I live in Boone, NC, and work for the Watauga County School District. I started out as a garden volunteer with my family and BSA, then as the garden lead at our school, and then progressed to working in the school with a middle school exploratory class and I was asked to be the lead for all garden leads in our district. My position has changed so much. Here are my answers to your questions:

1. Do any of you work (as in getting paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? Yes. I am also the lead over all the other garden leads for the 8 schools in our district. We used to be a part of Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and would get a $50 stipend from them and the school would match it. BRWIA didn't choose to seek funding for the program so no garden leads receive a stipend anymore for their work. I am working on trying to bring this back for our district.
If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? To be in our school I have to have another job within. I am an academic interventionist as well as a Horticulture teacher for middle school exploratory classes.
2. How is your job funded? Through the school district. There is no funding for our garden program so any money we get is from grants I apply for or donations (not often). I would like to have a student-led plant start selling in the spring to add to our program.
3. How many hours/week is the position? 40 hours
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with my Horticulture class once a week for 1 hour. We go into the garden almost weekly. I also help several classes with things they need or want to do in the garden. Anything outside of my 40 hours is strictly volunteer, which is often. Outside of the exploratory class, I am with students all day long so I can't maintain the garden during school hours. This often requires me to get help from local church groups. the local university, BSA volunteers, and school families and teachers on weekends or breaks. I will say, being inside the school makes it MUCH easier to get the staff and families on board as opposed to when I was not working in the school system. 

------------------------------
Danielle Tipton
Parkway Elementary School
Boone NC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-06-2022 09:51:15 AM
From: Shella Moritz
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hello Courtney,

I live in Charleston SC as a paid garden teacher and my pay comes from the county and has been that way for the past 3 years.  We also have 14 classes a week lasting 50 minutes each. We've had a garden at this school for at least 25 years and I'm hoping to continue in our new building next year. All of our funding and garden supplies come from County grants, Donor'sChoose, Lowe's, Home Depot and local supermarkets. We also do a fund raisers, which the children do through their art work and sell them. I love to cook, so we sell breakfast to our faculty as well which has been very helpful to our garden. I'm trying to get more assistance from parents during the summer months, otherwise there'll be no one else to tend to it.  Hope this helps

------------------------------
Shella Moritz
Macolm C. Hursey Elementary
N. Charleston SC
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2022 05:01:11 PM
From: ziva santop
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hi,

I was too was a volunteer at my daughter's school and transformed our garden to what it is today. 
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? - I get paid and it is my only job. I fall under the Classified and not certificated. My official position is "school garden specialist"
2. How is your job funded? The PFC funds my position but I get paid through the school district.
3. How many hours/week is the position? I have 15 hours a week at one school and just picked up 3 hours a week at another school.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with classes for about 5 hours a week and maintain the garden for 10 hours. My other 3 hours at the other school, is overseeing the garden program by educating the parent volunteers so they can teach gardening. I am hoping that they will increase my hours next year because I am putting in way too many hours (planning etc) for this school!



------------------------------
ziva santop

Hi Ziva,
Thank you so much for your response! It is really insightful as this is what I want to happen in our district. What is PFC and were you involved in getting the position funded? I spend a lot of time working and planning for the garden, but haven't tracked my hours and so your breakdown is really helpful. Do you work with all classes in the school or only those with interested teachers?
Thank you,
Cortney

------------------------------
Cortney Dillon
School Garden Coordinator
Leesburg, VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2022 05:01:11 PM
From: ziva santop
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hi,

I was too was a volunteer at my daughter's school and transformed our garden to what it is today. 
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? - I get paid and it is my only job. I fall under the Classified and not certificated. My official position is "school garden specialist"
2. How is your job funded? The PFC funds my position but I get paid through the school district.
3. How many hours/week is the position? I have 15 hours a week at one school and just picked up 3 hours a week at another school.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with classes for about 5 hours a week and maintain the garden for 10 hours. My other 3 hours at the other school, is overseeing the garden program by educating the parent volunteers so they can teach gardening. I am hoping that they will increase my hours next year because I am putting in way too many hours (planning etc) for this school!



------------------------------
ziva santop
------------------------------

Hi,

The PFC (PFA) is the Parent Faculty Club (similar to a PTA). The presidents at the time, were the ones along with the principal who realized that the success of the garden would only occur if there was a dedicated paid specialist. Luckily there were funds to pay for me. When the PFC has their annual giving campaign, gardening is included in how they market their ask from parents. So I am funded by the PFC (who is funded by the parents). It will be 5 years in February since I started my paid position. The other important part of the success of our garden program, is the gardening budget that I have through the PFC. I have $3,000 to spend throughout the year. This helps me to be able to buy plants etc. We have received several grants in the past as well.

My main school is a Waldorf Inspired public school, so we decided to focus on the grades that teach agriculture (third grade, weekly gardening), botany (fifth grade, 3 times a year), seasons (first grade, every other week) and nature (kinder, once a month). I am trying to have our middle school do gardening, but more environmental lessons. They are so busy so it has yet to happen. We also loop which means that first through third grade have the same teacher, and 4th-5th have the same teacher. 

The other school that I work at has all the grades gardening (but they only garden once a month), but I do not teach the students. I meet with the parents once a month and show them what to do. I have to come up with curriculum for all grades (TK-5th). This is only a 3 hour gig but am hoping it will increase next year.

I wish more districts would recognize the importance of a school garden. They love the idea of it but most do not fund it. I think you should approach your PFC/PFA/PTA (not sure what you have) and talk to them about possibly funding your position.

Hope this helps,
Ziva






------------------------------
Ziva Santop
School Garden Specialist
LVUSD
Agoura Hills, CA 
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-06-2022 01:02:14 PM
From: Cortney Dillon
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hi Ziva,
Thank you so much for your response! It is really insightful as this is what I want to happen in our district. What is PFC and were you involved in getting the position funded? I spend a lot of time working and planning for the garden, but haven't tracked my hours and so your breakdown is really helpful. Do you work with all classes in the school or only those with interested teachers?
Thank you,
Cortney

------------------------------
Cortney Dillon
School Garden Coordinator
Leesburg, VA
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2022 05:01:11 PM
From: ziva santop
Subject: School based garden coordinator

Hi,

I was too was a volunteer at my daughter's school and transformed our garden to what it is today. 
1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job? - I get paid and it is my only job. I fall under the Classified and not certificated. My official position is "school garden specialist"
2. How is your job funded? The PFC funds my position but I get paid through the school district.
3. How many hours/week is the position? I have 15 hours a week at one school and just picked up 3 hours a week at another school.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I work with classes for about 5 hours a week and maintain the garden for 10 hours. My other 3 hours at the other school, is overseeing the garden program by educating the parent volunteers so they can teach gardening. I am hoping that they will increase my hours next year because I am putting in way too many hours (planning etc) for this school!



------------------------------
ziva santop

On one of the field trips with the National Childrens and Youth Garden Symposium a few years ago in the Portland, Oregon area, we visited a school that had a garden coordinator that was with AmeriCorps. I can't remember if the school had to pay a part of the salary, but you might look into the AmeriCorps program.

------------------------------
Shelley Mitchell, PhD
Associate Extension Specialist
Youth Horticulture
Dept of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Oklahoma State University
358 Ag Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
[405-744-5755]
shelley.mitchell@okstate.edu
------------------------------

Great questions Cortney! A school garden program that has a paid coordinator values the people power who are doing the work and leads to sustainable programs. Initially when I began my school garden journey, I was a teacher and was paid by our PTA for 2 hours a week. I managed the garden and supported teachers who wanted to use it. When we started an after school program, I was paid 5 hours a week. When the after school program grew to 225 kids, we decided to start a program (MossHavenFarm.org) where each class came 1 x a week for a grade level lesson. I was able to retire and become a full time garden educator. Since then, I have taken a deep dive in the school garden movement. I started a for profit (GrowGardenGrow.org) and non profit (NTxSchoolGardenNetwork.org) school garden support organization that is supporting schools that don't have robust PTA's to grow school garden programs in their own schoolyards. There are 4 educators who work with us and they are paid through grant support. They work 16-24 hours per week and teach grade level specific garden based lessons. Each campus has different levels of maintenance. Some have their students do this job. Some have community work days where they invite the general community and families from the school. Let me know if you have any questions. Keep pushing for change! This work is hard and should be compensated.

------------------------------
Kim Aman
------------------------------

Hi Courtney, I currently have a garden coordinator who is funded by a farm to school grant I received last year.  This grant also funds two curriculum writers for a year.  Garden maintenance is written into the curriculum so kids do a lot of the maintenance, with their teacher, with the garden coordinator, or with me.  I'm the Nutrition Services Director so I don't have a ton of free time, and I do find that the garden takes up an awful lot of my time during the growing and planting seasons.  My Garden Coordinator is a pre-school teacher, so she runs activities before and after school, and can involve her students in helping with some things during the day, but her time is limited during the school day.  I'd say she puts in about 2-3 hours a week, and I put in about 5 hours a week during the growing season.

Funding from the grant runs out at the end of this school year.  I have asked for a stipend for the coordinator position to be included in the budget for next year, but I'm not optimistic that I'll get this.  Like you, I'm worried about the success of the garden going forward without a dedicated coordinator...  I am thinking of going to the local gardening club and the rotary club to see if they would be willing to donate to this stipend.

------------------------------
Jennifer Bove
East Hampton Public Schools
East Hampton CT
Jennifer
------------------------------

Hi Courtney,

I work for the Oregon Dept. of Ed. and am the Farm to School Analyst.   Back when i started ten years ago, almost no one had paid School Garden Coordinator positions.  Now, that percentage has increased a bunch, as noted on our statewide school garden scenarios.  Some things I've discovered (in Oregon):
*Private schools seem to have better luck convincing thier board to hire and show the benefits of SG as a classroom
*Having said that, a few school districts have hired them to roam to all thier school gardens
*Another model I'm seeing at secondary schools is that a Principal lets a teacher teach two periods of "horticulture" and have a couple school garden classes.   This would be classified as a "part time" paid job in my world. Sometimes this is for any teacher, I've seen art teachers and English teachers do this.. astonishing results.. the art teacher brings wonderful journals for kids to draw out the gardens, for example. 
We're wrapping up our survey this spring, Can't wait to share the updated results.  I think the last time we did a survey in 2019 we had as much as 30% of our gardens have either a full-time or part time person doing some paid work.  A lot is due to our ED grants we give out.

------------------------------
Rick Sherman
------------------------------

I am new to this community but love your post and reading all the fabulous responses!

1. Do any of you work (as in get paid) at a public school as a school garden coordinator? If so, is this your only responsibility or is it tied to another job?
I am an Edible Educator/Steward in Princeton, NJ. I am paid and work full time seasonally at 3 schools in the district: 2 PK-5 and 1 middle school. Basically I work  73% of a full time teachers hours. 
2. How is your job funded? It is funded by the district, after a YEARS-long campaign by a local nonprofit formed to create schools gardens in the public school district. A TON of effort was put in by some amazing people to make us a permanent part of the school district. 
3. How many hours/week is the position? 2 days a week per elementary school and 1 day per week at the middle school, 1 day a week during the summer.
4. How often do you work with classes vs. maintain the garden? I teach and maintain at the same time, so I would say, during the year, 80% is with classes.

------------------------------
Debbie Gries
------------------------------

I saw the reminder this morning that this thread is still highly relevant. Our town has only one ongoing garden project at the middle school, and it's sponsored and staffed by volunteers. The school supports the program and the Culinary Arts class that it's connected to, and we receive some funding from local clubs and businesses, but we have no money for a paid coordinator. 

We have begun looking for grants to help fund a position, but most of the opportunities focus on the farm-to-cafeteria, and our program doesn't include that aspect. The students use all the food in their classroom during the school year, and we donate the produce in the summer to local food bank programs.

This program was begun by a committed teacher who has now retired and it's a LOT of work keeping it going, as you all know. We serve about 100 students each week, for one semester programs. 

I will keep reading to hear suggestions from more experienced garden leaders and gain inspiration and ideas. 

------------------------------
Cindy Heath
------------------------------

Hi, Cindy!

The Whole Kids Foundation grants allow for some of the grant funds to be used to pay personnel -- could be worth checking into that one. They're $3K each so not enough to fund a full position, but maybe the district would agree to match, and that would at least be a start? Most other grants have stipulations that the funds can't be used to pay people. We have an in-state grant in Massachusetts that is under a farm to school umbrella but has a lot of flexibility, meaning any garden-based learning is considered a farm to school activity, even if the food grown in the gardens isn't used in the cafeterias. Perhaps some of the farm to school grants you've enountered would allow for similar leeway? Your local education foundation could also be a source of grant support.

Of course, grants won't help with making a garden coordinator position sustainable, but if you try piloting this through grant funds, you could return to the school district with additional info about the demonstrated need as well as share data/impacts of the pilot effort, and that could be a compelling argument for the district to contribute a small (but sustained) stipend to support garden learning into the future.

Here's hoping you make progress on this endeavor!

Jen

------------------------------
Jen Reese (she/her)
Science & Garden Coordinator
Amherst & Pelham Public Schools
Amherst, MA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-02-2024 12:24:16 PM
From: Cindy Heath
Subject: School based garden coordinator

I saw the reminder this morning that this thread is still highly relevant. Our town has only one ongoing garden project at the middle school, and it's sponsored and staffed by volunteers. The school supports the program and the Culinary Arts class that it's connected to, and we receive some funding from local clubs and businesses, but we have no money for a paid coordinator. 

We have begun looking for grants to help fund a position, but most of the opportunities focus on the farm-to-cafeteria, and our program doesn't include that aspect. The students use all the food in their classroom during the school year, and we donate the produce in the summer to local food bank programs.

This program was begun by a committed teacher who has now retired and it's a LOT of work keeping it going, as you all know. We serve about 100 students each week, for one semester programs. 

I will keep reading to hear suggestions from more experienced garden leaders and gain inspiration and ideas. 

------------------------------
Cindy Heath
------------------------------

Hi Courtney!

I am in San Bernardino CA, and I am a classroom teacher and in charge of the gardens.  I know it is a daunting task.  My suggestion is to create a parent gardening committee.  I have a few dedicated volunteers that I can call on when the garden needs upkeep that I cannot do because of time, kids, etc.  I have also been able to make some connections through our local master gardeners and they have helped with providing volunteers, tractors to move mulch and compost and work with students.  

------------------------------
JACQUELINE LACEY
Kimbark Elementary School
San Bernardino CA
------------------------------