Program Roles

NSE School Garden Support Roles

Our garden will:    Provide opportunities for learning and exploring.  Be clean, safe, and well kept.

Garden Coordinator:
Garden Coordinator will manage the planting and maintenance of the garden.  He or she will seek help from and communicate regularly with all garden support roles, discussing garden progress and tasks.

Docent Advisor(s):
Docent Advisor will develop and maintain an activity schedule for monthly classroom visits.  They or a partner will organize the monthly supplies for class/docent activities.  Lastly, they will insure that each activity’s supplies are inventoried and stored properly at the end of the month. 

Growing News Editor:
Will maintain and distribute regular communications with garden support team and school community.  A history of these communications will be kept on our web page for future reference.

Green Team Advisors:
The parent Green Team Advisor will maintain a roster and coordinate after school maintenance meetings.  A teacher advisor will work with  the students, teaching  leadership and facilitating the school projects.

Docents:
Garden Docents share the garden with the classroom.  They work with the teacher and Docent Advisor to schedule a regular time to take the students out to the garden in small groups.  This may be accomplished 1 to 4 times per month.  In order to accommodate large classes, they may need to recruit additional parents or repeat activities on consecutive weeks so each student gets an equal and regular visit to the garden.  It is beneficial to have multiple docents for each classroom.

Green Team:
The Green Team will consist of advisors and the students who seek additional “green” learning opportunities.  They will play a role in the regular planting and maintenance of the garden.   Green Team will look for curriculum opportunities and share their work with others.  The teacher advisor will coordinate classroom/docent pairing with green team member if needed.

Teachers:
Teachers will work with their garden docents to schedule a regular time).  They will help divide the class into well balanced groups of approximately five students each.  The 5 to 1 student to adult ratio is highly recommended by both the garden curriculum we purchased and the experiences of garden docents last year. The opportunities to learn are lost on large groups and we occasionally will have tools or materials that must be monitored closely.  Up to three groups can be accommodated in the garden area, keeping in mind there should be 1 adult for each 5 students.  Teachers are welcome to present Garden Coordinators with curriculum ideas or special projects that support a classroom activity.

Community Garden Crew:
The Community Garden Crew, led by the Garden Coordinator, will make sure our garden is green and growing.  They will consist of parents and community members willing to care for and learn about our school garden.  They will maintain the garden, plant new crops, accomplish any tasks needed to keep the garden growing.

Updated  8/2/2013