Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:Our direct target audience for this project are school garden teams from Title 1 schools in the District of Columbia, and indirectly, their entire school communities. We worked with 11 schools during the 2022-23 school year (Friendship Armstrong, Friendship Blow Pierce, Brighwood, Barnard, Bruce Monroe, Hendley, Mary McLeod Betune, Houston, KIPP Webb, Turner, and Friendship Woodridge). In addition, 30 teachers from 11 schools participated in our Summer Institute for Garden-Based teaching, held in July 2023. Changes/Problems:When we first started the Educator Coaching program, our partner schools engaged with us at different levels, and we managed a cohort of 11-12 schools each school year. We are finding that with fully active schools (participating in all components of the program), a dozen schools is difficult to manage with just two dedicated staff. The many demands on teachers also require a high degree of empathy and flexibility on our part. As a result, we reduced our cohort size to eight for the 2023-24 school year, including 5 schools who returned from 2022-23. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Summer Institute for Garden-based Teaching is a week-long intensive professional development and all schools that participate in the Educator Coaching Program must first send a team to the Summer Institute. This year, the Summer Institute took place July 12-15. The four-day workshop focused on building skills for classroom teachers in using the garden as an outdoor classroom, identifying opportunities in their curriculum for utilizing the garden, and increasing their confidence in their own gardening skills. 30 teachers from 11 schools participated. The week focused on building skills for classroom teachers in using the garden as an outdoor classroom, identifying opportunities in their curriculum for utilizing the garden, and increasing their confidence in their own gardening skills. The first day of the training focuses on teams identifying their Outdoor Learning "why" which can encompass and create a simple logic model which can encompass academic improvement, student engagement, social/emotional learning, and physical health (among others), and create a simple logic model, bringing in the how and the resources (both people and materials) needed. Sessions later in the week address garden planning, sustainable garden practices; using the garden to promote social-emotional development, math learning and literacy skills; and outdoor classroom management. Holding the sessions at the Washington Youth Garden brings the lessons to life and provides inspiration to the participants. Over the 6 years we've run the Summer Institute, we have discovered there is not enough time, and it is also not seasonally appropriate to introduce all garden tasks during that training. We now offer 2 PD days, one in the fall, and one in the spring, called Fall into (Spring into) School Gardening, that hosted 35 teachers from 25 schools in FY23. At those events, we offer more gardening 101 trainings, including how to prep beds, plant seeds and seedlings, grow using sustainable growing practices, and offer curricular connections to seasonal garden activities. We also share resources/ materials like seeds, seedlings, compost, and straw for free to Title 1 schools in the District. This continued learning and supplies support is critical for schools being able to easily maintain their gardens. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During the year, our program team took an active role in professional learning communities regionally and nationally. Our Director of Programs serves as the chair of the DC Environmental Education Consortium. Our School Garden Program Managers attended the national School Garden Support Organization Leadership Institute, and recently led a webinar on "How to Structure Impactful School Garden Professional Development." FONA's Washington Youth Garden also hosted a session for the 2023 Regional School Garden Summit, organized by City Blossoms and OSSE. Education professionals from West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District attended. We have also completed our first ECP overview document, highlighting the program model and its major outcomes. We have been encouraged by another grantor, DC Health's SNAP Ed program, to share this as a SNAP Ed Success Story, and hope to do so in the coming months. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Work is continuing with a new 2023-24 cohort of schools. The Summer Institute for Garden-Based teaching will take place in July 2024. ?

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Through our Educator Coaching Program, FONA offered technical assistance in garden maintenance, co-taught 116 garden lessons with teachers, distributed produce from the Washington Youth Garden to school families, and hosted 15 field trips at the Washington Youth Garden. Collectively, school garden teams established 41 goals for their school gardens, and achieved 32. Several schools established and achieved the goal of increased garden use school-wide; this is very important as we work towards integrating school gardens into the entire school community, rather than just a few enthusiastic educators or parent volunteers. The 2022-23 cohort included three new schools and we helped them facilitate a range of activities to establish their gardens. All returning school partners also launched new activities. For example, Friendship Armstrong implemented school staff wellness events. Over the course of the school year, our schools hosted four family workshops, eight family festivals, 20 produce distributions, and nine garden work days that engaged community members as well as staff. One of our schools, Brightwood Elementary in Ward 2, has participated in three Summer Institutes and our Educator Coaching Program in both the 21-22 and 22-23 school years. With logistical assistance from FONA, their garden program continues to expand as they engage more community partners, and more grades participate in outdoor learning and visit the Washington Youth Garden. One teacher reflected, "From our clear vision of the use of Brightwood's garden and the implementation of "The Logic Model" from [the Summer Institute], it was easy to constantly invite more teachers to join with their classrooms under FONA support and our Administrator's empathy... Now more teachers are interested to join next year. We learned a lot about Brightwood's garden space and we'll use this data as a great feedback to continue through this Summer and the beginning of the next School year. THANK YOU!" In 2023-24 school year - Brightwood running planning independently, but we are available to them for support in future We administered a survey at the end of the school year to all participants and all reported they intended to continue garden use. We met our goal that 100% of participating teachers in the Summer Institute for Garden-Based Teaching (described in the section below) teachers strongly agree or agree that the Summer Institute provided them with an increased understanding of: relevant curricular standards to create lessons that utilize the school garden or outdoor learning spaces; using the school garden or outdoor learning space to support social-emotional learning; using the school garden or outdoor learning spaces to support academic outcomes; and outdoor group management techniques and physical infrastructure to support outdoor learning. One participant wrote, "It was evident that extensive thought and planning were part of the Institute. The content was excellent and the expertise of the presenters was amazing. There was not only a mastery of the subject matter but also demonstrations of teaching methods that would reach a variety of learning styles." Based on evaluation data, we have refined how we gather information on garden team member participation so that we can get a better sense of growth of the school garden teams (which was always challenging to capture effectively in FY22 and 23). This allows us to capture Garden Team involvement at our Beginning of Year meetings, and then again at our End of Year meetings.

Publications