Join the Movement to Support School Gardening at Hayhurst School!!! We need your help to hang on to the #1 spot!

Hi Root 4 Kids fans, We’re two weeks in to our schools competition, and already there are dozens of schools competing for the grand prize of a Farm to School program or a school garden! Following is a list of the top 10 schools in the running so far. Don’t see your school in the lead or on the list? No worries! There’s still plenty of time to rally community members and generate sign ups. 1. Hayhurst Elementary School – Portland, OR 2. Lakeshore Elementary School – Mooresville, NC 3. Greenwood Elementary School – Seattle, WA 4. Richmond Elementary School – Portland, OR 5. Pleasant Prairie Elementary School – Pleasant Prairie, WI 6. Saints Peter and Paul School – West Chester, PA 7. Hampton Elementary School – Hampton, CT 8. Battle Academy – Chattanooga, TN 9. B.J. Hooper Elementary School – Lindenhurst, IL 10. The Village School – Eugene, OR Forward this email to friends and family and encourage them to sign up, and send it to the school you voted for and ask them to share it with their networks. The school with the most sign ups by May 31 will win! Bye for now, The Root 4 Kids team

HSGC Teacher Survey a HUGE Success!

In an effort to bring the ideas and interests of the teachers of Hayhurst School into the process of establishing the school garden program, the Hayhurst School Garden Council gave a simple teacher survey at the most recent staff meeting. The results of the survey are exciting to report and hopefully will go to facilitate the future efforts of the HSGC.  When asked “would you be interested in incorporating school gardening into your instruction,” 100% of Hayhurst teachers said YES! Yep, you are reading that right, each and every teacher at Hayhurst Elementary School wants school gardening to be a part of their teaching.

Added to that they expressed the need for support mostly along the lines of gardening skills then, secondarily, the need for more garden-based curriculum resources and more time to work it in to their busy schedules.

These are important and motivational insights moving forward with school gardening at Hayhurst and the HSGC is currently working on an overall planning and visioning meeting to manage these positive results and for the long-term sustainability of the gardens at Hayhurst.