School gardens across the district are in full bloom, transforming everyday spaces into vibrant outdoor gathering places. Whether a garden is in front of a school or it is hidden between buildings, next to playgrounds or behind parking lots, the district is home to some impressive school gardens.
Brought to life through local green initiatives, each school garden tells a unique story that reflects the individuality of the school behind it. Over the years, local organizations like The Nature Conservancy, LeboGreen, Tree Pittsburgh, Next Level Gardens and many others, have contributed time and donations to various gardens, but most are currently maintained by parent volunteers, students, teachers, and the school maintenance staff.
Advocating on behalf of garden initiatives across the district are parent volunteers Jackie Svitek and Shayna Bodi. Bodi, who has a sixth grader at Jefferson, has been working to revive gardens across the district for the past four years, playing a key role in garden development at Hoover Elementary while serving as their Environmental Committee Chair. Bodi’s vision for the Hoover garden took two years to come to fruition and is now housed in an open area near the cafeteria. The garden’s mile high sunflowers, herbs, tiny tomatoes, and open seating area creates an ideal setting for learning outdoors.
A sustainability consultant in the green building industry, Bodi also serves as the PTA Council Environmental Initiatives Committee Chair and a core leader for LeboGreen. For Bodi these gardens are more than a place to experience, grow, and harvest, they represent a means to support students in more meaningful ways. “Our mental health professionals at the schools could utilize the gardens for therapy, maybe conducting programming around these topics,” Bodi said.
Other important goals for Bodi and Svitek include using the gardens to help teachers get students off screens and engaged in nature, connecting students across schools to foster environmental awareness, and teaching the sustainable practices they can use outside of school.
Highlighting the positive research around spending time outdoors, Bodi notes that “access to windows and fresh air have even been linked to higher test scores, better attitudes, better learning, and even better sleep. Just taking a book outside could have huge benefits.” With the help of parent volunteers, the LIGHT education initiative, and PTA support, Bodi’s next task is to invigorate the garden at Jefferson Middle School starting this fall.
Another notable school garden in the district is located at Howe Elementary. Principal Rizutto, and local artist Ashley Flavin, the designer and parent volunteer who maintains it, created the perfect space for Howe’s garden. Its prominent display in front of the school allows students and families to access it but also encourages community members to enjoy it too. It was Flavin’s vision that started the garden, but the support of the PTA and fundraising events is also a key component in its success. A quick stop at the garden reveals rabbits, butterflies and insects as a visible part of the garden’s beauty. Containing brightly colored flowers, herbs, tomato plants and a Little Free Library, this garden offers a place to sit, smell, and engage with nature for anyone who walks by.
Jefferson Elementary is also home to a flourishing school garden. A large garden structure, donated by Richard Salivante of Pittsburgh Garden Company, creates a contained space where students can walk through caring for different kinds of plants, cooking herbs, and multiple types of tomatoes. Spilling over the sides of large containers, bright yellow squash blossoms with ripening squash are impressive, while multiple picnic tables make this space an inviting area for observing nature and harvesting fruits and vegetables.
Although all the school gardens in the district are producing and growing, most are thriving, while some are still developing. Echoing the support of each individual school, some gardens have encountered more challenges than others. Because they are not funded by the district directly, the financial support for these gardens isn’t linear. Typically funded by PTAs, parents, student clubs, fundraising initiatives, and donations, it can be difficult to create consistency across the district, something Bodi and Svitek are hoping to change.
Svitek, a school based occupational therapist and mother of two high school students, volunteers her time co-chairing the Mellon Environmental Club and sits on the board at LeboGreen. With the goal of reaching more environmentally minded students, Svitek plans to merge the Environmental Clubs at Jefferson and Mellon this year and partner with the High School to create a Schoology page hub for anyone who wants to get involved.
Svitek, who spearheaded the gardens at Mellon, feels this is especially important to keep garden initiatives successful. She also notes how volunteering across schools creates connections and mentoring opportunities, “talking, collaborating, working together for a common goal, while being able to walk past the beautiful space each day knowing that you were a part of it and having that shared experience with peers” is a valuable vision Svitek has for district students.
The potential for each school garden is unlimited, a fact that is evident in the gardens at the High School. Easily visible from Cochran Road, the raised concrete bed garden and the Rosebud Garden are aesthetic highlights in the school’s landscaping. Created as a partnership between Mrs. Nass’s ABA classroom and Lauren Flannery from the Mt. Lebanon Nature Conservancy, the concrete bed is filled with native plants designed to invite insects and other wildlife to occupy the space. Thoughtfully created to support local species of plants and shrubs, the Redbud Garden next to the staircase was completed last spring and is a product of the hard work of math teacher and owner of Next Level Gardens Pete Bouvy, Mrs. Nass’s classroom, and Lebo Stars peer mentors. “Our long-term hope is that the ABA classroom will continue using both gardens as outdoor learning spaces, where students can help care for the plants while observing pollinators, birds, seasonal changes, and the many ecological relationships that develop over time,” said Bouvy. “The gardens were designed to be living classrooms as much as landscape features. The district’s maintenance department, of course, also plays an important role in caring for the broader campus landscape.”
The garden parties hosted in Washington Elementary School’s garden is a highlight each year for students and parents alike but wouldn’t exist without the help of volunteers Beth McCabe and teacher Rose Davidson. Mostly funded by the PTA, “donations gathered during this event go towards projects for the garden, such as the annual collaborative art project created during the garden party,” McCabe said. In addition to the parties, “we schedule garden cleanups several times throughout the year and invite the school community to join us. We usually get 10-12 volunteers each time. We intentionally designed the space to be self-sustaining so it wouldn’t require a lot of maintenance,” McCabe said, but it still takes many volunteers to make this garden a sustained success.
Now with all the school gardens in motion, Bodi feels there is room for implementing other environmental initiatives in the district. She may have started with the school gardens but now she hopes to expand beyond that, “reducing waste at school events and parties, composting garden waste, using the gardens more for mental health and wellness benefits, changing lightbulbs to LED’s and upgrading HVAC equipment for healthier indoor air quality,” are ideas for the district that she hopes to see in the future. Bodi says, “I would love to have our community engaging with our gardens and sponsoring programs and learning opportunities for our students. I would love to see more priority on committing to environmental initiatives within our schools and within the municipality. In my opinion, we would all benefit from more joy in our lives and a deeper connection and prioritization on getting off our devices and making real connections to our natural world.”
