18:03:09 3, just a reminder. This meeting is subject to Texas open meeting meetings, acting. That's fine.
18:03:15 Thank you. I started hands, usually with housekeeping. A few reminders. The Austin and P.
18:03:22 School district. Shaq is an Advisory board and shell serve to provide guidance, counsel, and other assistance to the Board of Trustees and district administration as is specifically listed in State law and District policy.
18:03:33 Everyone's input invoice is important and valued. We want to hear from every single shackman.
18:03:39 Yeah, please remember to raise your hand and wait to share your comments and call plans, as always when you get started with our roll call. When your name is called.
18:03:50 Please go ahead and say, Here is that, is that the best option? Okay, if you can say here, if you're here, thank you.
18:03:57 Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and go off based of the participant.
18:04:05 Roster on zoom. Start Addison, Mckenna.
18:04:11 Here!
18:04:09 Belinda.
18:04:12 Here!
18:04:13 Dr. Selener.
18:04:16 Here!
18:04:17 Okay, let's say, Juliet.
18:04:22 Nina!
18:04:21 Here!
18:04:27 Here!
18:04:29 Okay, that is, am I missing any other member? Please speak up now.
18:04:37 I'm here.
18:04:39 Oh, Stacey, okay.
18:04:43 Anybody else.
18:04:48 Okay, we do not have quorum at this time.
18:04:52 Well said, do you want me to clarify who that E number belongs to?
18:04:55 Yes, please.
18:05:05 Thank you.
18:05:05 Oh, Hi Robin!
18:05:07 No, you're good.
18:05:02 Sorry. That's Robert Smith. Sorry.
18:05:12 Would like to give everyone a special welcome. Thank you for being here tonight.
18:05:15 Just a quick check for trustees. I don't see any trustees here, so I'm gonna go ahead and continue if we have members of the community and parents thank you for being here tonight as well we're gonna go ahead and move on to our community communication.
18:05:31 So a person's wishing to provide public comments will be asked to state their name and acknowledge that they have read note about public comments listed below. Comments are limited to 2 min per person.
18:05:41 5. Speakers, Max, if there's more than 5 then there will be a drawing of needs.
18:05:44 Speakers and desserts are expected to provide comments and respectful manner. If the presiding officer deems a speaker to, or visitor to be disrespectful, that person may be warned, or else noncompliance may result in ajection from the meeting are we just emailing
18:06:02 you, Jose, on the? Or is there gonna be a Google form? Sorry? Someone double check?
18:06:05 I'm just sorry. I just dropped the Google form.
18:06:10 Thank you.
18:06:10 Please let me know if anybody has any trouble accessing it.
18:06:11 Ready! Go ahead and give everyone a few minutes to go ahead and fill that out.
18:06:16 If you are interested in public commentary tomorrow.
18:06:43 So that's so. We go ahead and wait 2 more minutes. So at 60.
18:06:48 8, we'll go ahead and continue. Thank you for your patience.
18:07:20 One more! Minute!
18:07:51 I will do that this time. I have some things.
18:08:05 Do we have anyone that's interested in public commentary today?
18:08:11 Okay, thank you. So if I could, please invite our Director of Health services to provide the Health Service Department with the Thank you.
18:08:22 Mary. We just wanna thank you again for your service and shack.
18:08:27 I know time is coming close to an end, and we wanna thank all the members and just a real quick update, we're still in the process of securing aisd school nurses. So there'll be employees of the district.
18:08:41 So if you all know anyone, you know, wanting to join the force for welcoming High School nurses in, and it's gonna expand that we're gonna create partnerships with ut.
18:08:52 And A/C, and it's gonna be an amazing opportunity. So I just kinda wanted to throw that to shaft Jose and I will still be integral, you know, to the committee.
18:08:59 But of course, as Pat and her team takes over, they're going to do a fabulous job, we have no doubt. And then we'll be hearing support. But we want to thank you guys for a whole year of work, and it's coming to an end. But you guys, have done a fabulous job. And we wanna thank that committee. And.
18:09:17 And that's it for me. Yeah.
18:09:18 Thank you, hey? So we were gonna go ahead and move into our voting of the Equity Advisory Committee letter and approvals for minutes. But we're gonna come back to those hopefully.
18:09:32 We'll have more members here tonight so that we can cover that if we're okay, I mean, I would.
18:09:36 Okay, would now be okay for the presentations with the.
18:09:44 Oh, is is it? Let me! It's muted sorry, Nina.
18:09:52 Yes, I had told the other presenter. 6, 45.
18:09:58 But I can ask them to hop on. Now. Can you hear me?
18:09:59 Is, if it's okay, if it's not, that's okay, as well.
18:10:03 Okay, just 1, one moment.
18:10:03 If our meetings moving. Sure, thank you. Did everyone have a chance to look at the Equity Advisory Committee letter at this time? Okay, good.
18:10:14 Everyone received, we're gonna be voting on it, if not tonight.
18:10:18 At our next meeting. It just depends on quorum or not.
18:10:22 Let's see.
18:10:28 So today, we're actually gonna have a pretty cool presentation about gardens on each campus and proposals for healthers for next year.
18:10:39 Nina has been working really hard on this. I'm really excited that she's been able to present to that present that to us tonight.
18:10:44 And this is also the opportunity to consider if this is one of the initiatives that we would like to do for next year.
18:10:50 So those are just some things to think about. If you haven't had a chance to focus, please do we want to hear your voices and hear what you have to say?
18:11:01 And I can also drop that in the.
18:11:08 What I'm gonna ask everyone to do if you have not had a chance to fill out the survey yet, if you could, please fill that out at this time, and give everyone about 5 min.
18:11:18 If you can do this at this time, if you haven't filled it out yet. Thank you.
18:11:55 Thank you for those of you that have already filled it out. When you had to wait about 4 more minutes.
18:13:42 Hey! Go ahead! Give everyone about 3 more minutes to fill out the survey, and then we'll go ahead and continue.
18:13:49 Thank you for your patience tonight.
18:15:13 So I can start anytime. Mary.
18:15:16 Yeah, thank you. So it gives us a great pleasure to introduce Nina Miller to present some gardens at each campus and proposal for health fairs also, with Mister Kurt. Thank you for presenting earlier.
18:15:32 I know that the designate time, so we appreciate that you all are doing it in advance earlier.
18:15:37 Thank you for your patience, and thank you for doing it.
18:15:38 Absolutely.
18:15:38 So!
18:15:38 No problem at all. So when Trustees are appointed me to the chef, she told me, Nina, I want a garden in every school.
18:15:50 Can you do that? And I said, I'll sure try.
18:15:53 So. So then I set about doing research and talking to community health leaders, looking into how gardening is it's done different approaches.
18:16:03 How could be expanded to all aisd schools? Who would be the natural partners?
18:16:11 What were the potential costs, and even how it could be integrated into an existing school's curriculum.
18:16:20 Of all the standard subjects, so, and then I set about writing my proposal.
18:16:27 So the idea is to bring communities together around the common goal of establishing school gardens and every Aisd school on the idea would be to start with the most underserved districts.
18:16:40 The objective would be to confront the obesity and diabetes to epidemics.
18:16:48 That's very fast growing among our children.
18:16:52 Using sort of innovative approaches to provide access to nutritious food teach kids how to grow their own food, teach kids how to grow their own food, and how to become more involved in yeal, planning, and cooking, also to address mental health and the fact that kids
18:17:16 get you know, morale boosters and the fact that kids get, you know, morale boosters and better moods and physical exercise from the act of gardening, and then to develop self-confident leaders who could bring the gardening home to their own families and their own communities and build them
18:17:29 there, so the benefits to children are seem to be virtually limitless.
18:17:36 Increasing the acceptance of fresh produce and vegetables.
18:17:41 So studies show that kids are more likely to try vegetables if they grow them themselves.
18:17:46 Developing self-confidence, guarding fosters pride and a sense of accomplishment.
18:17:52 Because kids get to see what they've nurtured all the way from the seed to the harvest, and kids are gonna succeed in this endeavor.
18:18:01 If they put in the work. So it's like I guaranteed way to give them a chance for success.
18:18:10 And then the approach that I'm going to talk about requires no previous gardening, skill, or experience.
18:18:16 I talked about, enhancing well-being with fresh air, sunshine, fiscal exercise, relieving stress, improving mood, and so forth, and then gaining important life skills, so gardening requires patience and perseverance and creative problem solving and a lot of hard work to pull
18:18:39 it off. So all of this correlates really well, with what kids need in the real world.
18:18:45 And then making learning fun, because gardening can be incorporated into virtually any subject, and I'll talk about that a little bit, but it's it's a way to learn through a project based activity which is more exciting.
18:19:01 And engaging for kids, learning about environmental issues, composting, becoming good stewards of the earth, using natural resources, and on and on and on, and all of this, when you can do it in a hands-on way, instead of you know.
18:19:17 And as a module of study in the classroom, it just becomes more real for kids nurturing conscious consumers.
18:19:27 So kids start to recognize where food comes from and what goes into growing it, and what real food really looks like.
18:19:34 Then the kids bringing the kid, the food home and cooking and meal, planning at home, and then training them to be leaders in their own communities, to grow gardens.
18:19:48 And again, studies show that gardening interventions increase healthy food and take reduce obesity.
18:19:54 So there's a lot of literature that shows that so those are the benefits to the kids.
18:20:01 And then the benefits to the district are that the scouring fulfills many objectives of the school.
18:20:08 Health policy that we've been talking about. There's so much in there that talks about promoting nutrition and healthy activities and being able to measure them.
18:20:17 So the garden is virtually like fit fit that perfectly in so many ways.
18:20:24 And then I also thought Austin Aisd could become a model to other districts and other schools.
18:20:31 School Board could be recognized for innovative approaches to learning and addressing kids, physical and mental health.
18:20:40 And you know, using innovative solutions that really work.
18:20:44 So the system that I think is good work best for this is something called the Mid Liner System.
18:20:49 It's a form of gardening where everything is integrated into a system with a manual that describes how to pull off this endeavor, using the least amount of water, the least the cheapest materials, and with the least amount of effort.
18:21:11 So it's a really incredible system where you can actually anticipate your yield.
18:21:15 You can determine what you won't want your yield to meet to be, and then work back to how you're going to build the garden beds.
18:21:23 So it's very unusual in that way. And because we want all kids to have the the experience of achieving success with growing vegetables, I think to have something that's you know, predetermined to to work, it's going into a garden with all the pitfalls and
18:21:44 all the challenges, where some gardens are just gonna fail and my husband and my kid are garner. So we've been doing this for 20 years, and Texas is a really hard place to garden.
18:21:56 And sometimes you just have failed crops and bad seasons, so we don't want to take new kids who've never garden before.
18:21:59 And give them a failed garden. So this is an opportunity where we know it's good to succeed.
18:22:04 If we follow the manual, and we have a garner on this call.
18:22:11 Who's get a kind of walk us through the steps and give you a little bit more technical information.
18:22:17 So we thought we'd start, or our idea is to start with 3 to 5 schools.
18:22:23 As a pilot, and that way we can work out all the kinks.
18:22:27 Figure out who are the key players? Who are the leaders in each school sort of how to pull it off so we could start with some underserved schools that have a really passionate parent community and staff that are are committed to the success of the garden or some players like lasso where you may have kids
18:22:49 who are already in a gardening club, who are high achievers and you know physics pros and are going to have maybe an easier time pulling this off.
18:22:58 So the idea is to start out with a few, and then, once any issues are worked out to roll out for more schools.
18:23:10 Aside from the obvious practical benefits of learning how to garden, there are some amazing interdisciplinary teaching, opportunity, opportunities.
18:23:21 So I wanted to mention just a couple of them by biology.
18:23:26 You've got back to your viruses, taxonomy, all kinds of teaching around.
18:23:34 Climb, and seasons for chemistry. You could teach photosynthesis, chemical reactions, organic molecules for English.
18:23:44 You could have journal journaling and report writing, terminology, researching, health.
18:23:50 Of course, nutrition, diet, cooking, exercise, vitalamins and minerals, disease and nutritive deficiencies and even herbal medicine for history, victory, gardens, agricultural history for home economics, food, preservation, techniques, Neural planning for math measurements
18:24:13 charts and graph statistics, and then shop building and construction techniques for building the beds.
18:24:21 So there's a methodical way to plan the garden that includes starting in a certain time of year.
18:24:27 So it's sort of dictated by the season.
18:24:30 So you start germinating the seeds, you know, early, like January, February, you have to plant them after you know the average last day of frost.
18:24:40 So there is, you know, dealing with the seedlings, the plant cultivation, and then, while you're waiting for yields, you could discuss things like food, preservation.
18:24:54 A chef could come in and work with the kids on cooking.
18:24:59 You've got weeding, cultivation, harvest seed, saving food, storage.
18:25:06 So there's just so much for the kids to learn and all in a way that's hands-on.
18:25:12 So, this would be very exciting, and then we discussed.
18:25:17 Is it the whole school that is involved? Is it one class per school?
18:25:25 How much yield will there be for the kids?
18:25:29 So you want every kid to have, you know, a plan for themselves, or to be able to participate.
18:25:34 So this is something that could be dealt with on a school-to-school basis.
18:25:37 We could work with primitive try to find the key players, a health teacher or PE teacher to spearheaded and then figure out for each school, or whichever schools want to be involved.
18:25:51 What the level is of participation, and how it fits into the curriculum.
18:25:56 So for some it might be incorporated into a science class, maybe at a higher level, like a high school at elementary schools that might be offered as part of physical education or health, and so all of these things, I think, can be worked out.
18:26:12 But I think there are just massive opportunities. And then I talked to trustee Zapata.
18:26:21 She wanted schools to have the option of using their own teams of people or parents who come from cultures that are already heavily in gardening or or schools that have gardening clubs so you could have schools that would opt to use their own traditional methods of gardening or of existing gardens who want
18:26:41 to continue on using that model. And so I think that gives schools a lot of choice.
18:26:46 So we could offer all kinds of resources and funds for schools to do it, whichever way they would like, but to offer this mid library system as sort of a guaranteed success.
18:26:59 There are other ways to onboard, kids to the gardening concept in a more nutshell way, because building grants will take time.
18:27:12 And so we actually actually trustees a Pota and I had a meeting last week with a Travis County health and Human services, and Austin, public Health and Texas Central Health and some gardeners to just sort of brainstorm, and there were members from the Central mycology Central
18:27:38 Texas mycology there, who explained their mycology workshops which they bring into kids at school.
18:27:45 So they bring in these things called mushroom blocks, and kids have experienced growing them into these magnificent mushrooms, which then they can cook and do other things with, and mushrooms are part of this world of fungi.
18:27:57 That are kind of like the basis of all life. And so there's like amazing learning that can come out of that and curriculum.
18:28:03 So my colleges, workshops, I thought, would be a great sort of first point of you know.
18:28:12 First milestone on this gardening adventure, and then there are also things like food forests, or something called the Festival Beach food, forest, with is like an edible forest garden on a ladybird, lake.
18:28:26 So there are many different ways to expose kids to like this magic of growing food and taking care of the earth.
18:28:34 Etc. I looked a little bit into funding school gardens, and I think there are myriad ways that we could do it.
18:28:43 I think that they qualify as infrastructure improvements for schools. There's Federal money for that.
18:28:47 There are all kinds of organizations, like the Robert Wood, Johnson Foundation, Austin Park Foundation, Parks, and Recreation, St. David's.
18:28:58 I have a whole long list. They're also Austin, philanthropists who might be interested in participating parents could start a give, send, go, or go fund me for each community to raise money for their particular school, and then there's a long list of community partnerships because there are so
18:29:19 many, organizations who are dedicated to help and just this kind of thing health and human services, and often public health like, I, said Dell Center, for healthy living, something called go Austin Vamos, Austin Green School Yards, America, and the list goes so so I wanted to open it
18:29:40 up to Kurt now, who's on the call here with us for any questions specifically for this type of gardening system or other kinds of questions.
18:29:53 Happy to answer at this time.
18:30:03 If anyone has a question you can go ahead and raise your virtual hands, and we'll make sure to call on you.
18:30:08 Thank you so far for the presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr.
18:30:12 Kurt any questions, Addison. Go ahead.
18:30:14 I don't believe that her is on the line. I'm his business partner.
18:30:19 He's on a long distance trip. My name's Lucinda Bailey.
18:30:24 I'm a certified crop Advisor.
18:30:26 I've taught at college level 49, or 40 40 different methods of gardening.
18:30:32 This is such a wonderful system. What a great presentation! Nina. We've had!
18:30:38 8 year olds that grew after this study, 400 pounds of food in their first year of gardening.
18:30:46 So it is a simple but effective system that's been used all over the world for.
18:30:55 Oh, okay.
18:30:52 So Kurt is on the call. So, Kurt, if you wanna unmute and pitch in, would love to hear from you.
18:31:01 Sure, how are you guys doing? Thank you for having us this evening?
18:31:08 Lucinda is the being planter in the operation.
18:31:12 I'm the bean counter. So I'm certainly happy to help you guys with any questions you might have, how something like this might get off the ground, and any questions regarding the method itself, and how we would go about growing this food should probably be directed towards those send up.
18:31:31 Thank you. Addison. Go ahead.
18:31:36 You want me to go ahead?
18:31:39 I think we have a question. Addison's gonna ask you a thank you for your patience.
18:31:40 Oh, okay. Sure.
18:31:50 Addison, we can't hear you. I don't know if it's just me, but we couldn't hear you.
18:31:55 I know you're unmuted, but it's the sounds not going through. Do you wanna type it in the chat?
18:32:01 Or you might have already typed. What was the question about the what schools currently have gardens?
18:32:09 Okay. Her question was, what schools currently have gardens at this same.
18:32:16 That's question.
18:32:16 So that's not. That's not something that I've researched.
18:32:21 I mean, I know I know of some schools like Murchison.
18:32:25 I drove by their their garden of the other day to take a look at it. So I know that there's a number of schools that do, and that would be part of the research to figure out who needs this the most who needs support with existing gardens, etc. So that would be a great list to start compiling.
18:32:44 I also know that Pat, in elementary and elementary have gardens too, but we can get back to you on that.
18:32:49 Edison. Thank you, Stacey.
18:32:56 Hi! There! Hi! So this is I'm in trustee Sipata's district.
18:33:04 I'm at Go Valley, elementary and I've taught at several schools and I've been in the district 25 years.
18:33:12 It's actually my experience that lots of schools have the infrastructure for gardens, raised bed gardens.
18:33:19 It's just whether they're used or not.
18:33:21 So my question? Not really question. I guess it's part of my experience like Go Valley has an amazing garden right now.
18:33:30 We've gotten lots of grants through Ecorice, the city of Oxford, through bright green futures for big jump, big green jumpstart, and it's really outstanding what we're finding is that it's very difficult to help the teachers integrate that into their
18:33:54 day with their curriculum model. I'm actually back in the classroom.
18:33:59 I'm a librarian, and we've had so many teacher vacancies.
18:34:02 I'm having to step in and just being in the classroom for 2 weeks and looking at curriculum is just making my brain explode.
18:34:14 So I would my my excitement about this is like it's I mean, I just the garden has kind of saved my sanity this year, even back in the classroom.
18:34:26 But my wish is that what ever lessons or ways people can consider, and integrating this into the school day really has to go through the curriculum that teachers are actually looking at every week?
18:34:46 So, for example, we have great people through the Sustainability department, who created some outdoor learning lessons, and they really tried to do a great job of saying like you could do this during math time.
18:34:57 You could do this during science time, whenever time, but that often just seems as like an extra layer of lessons to put on top of what other.
18:35:08 What teachers are already looking at every week like, I just looked at a 133 pages of a measurement unit.
18:35:13 For like 2 weeks. So I would definitely try to get the ear of the curriculum departments.
18:35:19 The school's office to really make it transformative at some level, or it through the pilot, or whoever you know, I mean, that's what we're doing at Go Valley to really dig into the every 9 weeks like, where can we literally substitute this gardening.
18:35:39 Lesson for another lesson, because, whatever you add, you have to subtract something.
18:35:44 So that's my feedback. And and this and I 150% support support.
18:35:51 This, and I, but I would say there are lots of gardens.
18:35:55 It's just you know. Are they being used?
18:36:00 And to figure out why or why not? They're being used and definitely ask those classroom teachers what they need for support.
18:36:07 Which is.
18:36:07 Thank you so much. That's all. Such valuable information.
18:36:12 I'm just chatting it down.
18:36:16 I think that we want to provide funding for all schools, and maybe the gardens that aren't being used at schools like yours need more funding, more support, more outside partners to come in and support it.
18:36:37 And so that would be part of this proposal.
18:36:40 I think that may be the mid lighter system would best work with schools that have a lot of resources and can on board a new project and find a way to integrate it.
18:36:56 And certainly that won't be off schools, and I understand that that's that's a hurdle to try to figure out if you're gonna have to remove something to include this instead of being able to incorporate this into something that already exists so I think those are the conversations that need to happen
18:37:11 next, and different schools could have different needs and desires around this.
18:37:18 So that would probably play a role in deciding how to launch this program.
18:37:26 I had a question a little bit about I know that it also a little bit.
18:37:32 What are some of the plants or vegetables that the students get to plant through this program?
18:37:35 That is a good question. In the spring we were thinking, cherry tomatoes because they grow.
18:37:41 We can grow them straight up. 3 dimension bush green beans, because it is a short growing span.
18:37:49 So once they've germinated about 6 weeks, they will start producing be turnips, which you can use the leaves as well as the root crop, and the turnips tell you when they are ready to be pulled up, because they literally jump out of the ground, which is kind of cool for kids and then
18:38:07 Swiss chart, because you can take the big giant leaves which definitely impressed the kids and do a sandwich wrap, substitute for bread and that kind of thing.
18:38:19 So in the spring those things will work real well in the fall.
18:38:23 We were thinking, kale, cabbage, lettuce, and radishes again as a very short turn crop that you would do as a successive planting.
18:38:30 So that the kids that have short attention spans again in about 32 days they could be eating radishes.
18:38:41 And then with with one bed. I think Nina recommended that we did one bed to start with a 4 foot wide by 30 foot bed.
18:38:50 That's about 4 crop, you know. Pretty much. Be with the limit.
18:38:53 Thank you. Everyone else have a question.
18:38:57 Nina, can I ask your Lucinda? We probably need to put for some infrastructure for them to be successful.
18:39:10 So in the summer or during spring break, who would tend to the garden so that we don't lose everything the kiddos have worked for? Would it?
18:39:19 Will we just designate an how would we handle that infrastructure for the gardens?
18:39:25 We said that? Do you have an answer?
18:39:27 You can, the watering. It would be the most critical, because it does require daily watering, and that process can be automated through a timer.
18:39:38 A battery, a solar solar would be one way, or you.
18:39:44 You can. There are other ways to have watering system.
18:39:50 It doesn't need to be weeded for a week.
18:39:53 You could kind of, you know, go through your Spr. Break and then pop back in, and cultivation at that point would be important.
18:40:01 We definitely would need to have someone who would be checking on these beds on a regular basis during the summer, especially as far as preventing vandalism and that sort of thing during the brutal heat of the summer.
18:40:21 We're not going to be getting a whole lot of produce but there will be a lot of produce coming after school is out for at least a another month, and so that would be it would be a benefit to someone whether it's a students or teachers.
18:40:31 But really for a program like this to work whatever method you choose, whatever school you you go into, it really is going to require the passionate interest of at least one teacher or administrator to really keep on top of that, this is not something you can just track over to kids and trust that it's all gonna be done.
18:40:53 At at the end of the year. So Nan did mention that the mid lighter system is a guaranteed system, and yes, if you do it, according to the book, and everything works out in terms of your client and everything else you will be able to gain the results that
18:41:15 you were planning at the beginning of the season, however, gardening is never a guarantee if you have a huge hailstorm, if you have a deer that hops on a property and wipes things out, I mean there are ways to mitigate those sorts of things, but there's no
18:41:32 such thing as a guarantee on anything, especially that you're doing outside.
18:41:35 But but using the midl or system, there is a greater guarantee of success, and not only success in terms of the amount of vegetables you would get per square, and and the replicability of that system.
18:41:55 Thank you.
18:41:55 Yeah, I was gonna mention that one thing about this system that's so extraordinary is not only is the ratio of effort to yield greater than any other method, but it's also replicable.
18:42:12 And I think almost like of a franchise. If you have a manual of a certain way that it works, and if you follow it then you take a lot of the guesswork, and you're more likely to be relatively consistent, predictable and replicable, which I think makes it perfect to roll out to a
18:42:30 system like a whole bunch of schools.
18:42:33 The watering is a obviously an extremely important aspect of this, and ideally, we would need the school or some contractor to draw the water supply from wherever the source is to the head of the beds that we would be building, and then they would be tied in directly to the water supply there would not
18:42:57 be hoses, there would not be sprinklers in the mid lighter system.
18:42:59 You have a 3 quarter inch piece of PVC pipe that runs down the route.
18:43:05 You only water 1 min in the morning and 1 min at night.
18:43:08 It's the most method of gardening in terms of water usage that.
18:43:16 So that water does almost becomes a non issue. But you do obviously have to get it to the bed.
18:43:23 So, Addison. Did Kurt answer your question?
18:43:32 Addison.
18:43:34 She can't. Her sound doesn't come out.
18:43:40 Oh, oh, okay! Let me ask her.
18:43:39 So she might answer in the but A/C. Does this time, Stacy, could you ask your question?
18:43:46 Thank you for your P.
18:43:46 Well, I put in the chat and the lots of campuses have.
18:43:53 Ace, 20 first century, summer programs. So it's there's a lot of summer things going on.
18:43:57 It's just a matter of, you know, maybe seeing it's always dependent on a person who feels passionate about this, you know, who will usually step up and say, Give me the gardening key.
18:44:10 I'll do it.
18:44:11 But I was actually, I feel like I don't know enough about the mid lighter system.
18:44:19 Is there like a link we could get to? Just learn a little bit for a that you recommend.
18:44:22 Sure you can go to Www. Dot Texas ready.net, and that will give you an overview food for everyone.
18:44:35 Foundation presently owns the mit lighter franchise, and so forth, that is used with, and the gentleman that runs it.
18:44:45 Jim Kennard has been deeply involved with this.
18:44:49 Probably 4 decades, and met letter has been used on every single Continental with tremendous results.
18:44:59 It's been used. It started with orphanages in the most empower, and Mr. Mittliter was able to take a failing program that was in the red and just through the met later garden proceeds from sales of foods.
18:45:19 The Kids group was able to put orphanage after orphanage back in the black and very effective.
18:45:28 So we know that this will work with children.
18:45:30 And you said it uses less water save than a.
18:45:42 Okay.
18:45:37 About 40% less than any other garden method. Top 40 methods at Lone Star College.
18:45:45 So, and this is by far the most productive.
18:45:50 Great. Thank you so much.
18:45:57 Oh, so I was just gonna. Say that I will send my proposal on to all of you.
18:46:05 And that contains information on the system. So you'll be able to click on the links both to Texas ready, which is the company that Lucinda, and and also to just other links that talk about the mid.
18:46:20 I'm so sorry I have one more question that question actually LED to my other question.
18:46:24 So if there's already like our gardens, Echo Valley, can you sort of like convert existing garden beds to that system?
18:46:30 Yes, yes.
18:46:31 Say, raised. Okay. Okay. Great.
18:46:41 Anybody else.
18:46:44 I was just gonna say, if there was in the proposals while you're at the beginning, and while you're trying to, you know the excitement about this and the lunggevity of the program because, of course, this is not a week's word, activity, this is a
18:47:01 semester or, you know, years worth of activity, potentially getting a stipend into the grant, or something for somebody on the ground to be able to maybe spearheaded, but also just the ongoing as you've mentioned weeding harvesting you know, checking in on
18:47:22 it, you know, periodically, just so. It doesn't fall by the wayside cause.
18:47:26 That's been our experiences. You can get it in the ground. People are excited to do that.
18:47:30 But then it sort of wanes, and you need, you know, somebody to kinda keep it up over the whole course of the time. It's.
18:47:38 Okay, so that's a fantastic point. Clearly, we try to get Grant money to cover one year but once you build the beds they're good to go.
18:47:54 You can just keep on planting, and you don't wanna run out of money.
18:47:56 Challenge us to try to figure out what grants could be ongoing.
18:48:03 If there is such a thing like how to make that money consistent, if there's a way to reach out to organizations and say, this is actually could be a 4 year project.
18:48:14 So we do want to put the investment of building the beds and building this whole thing only to have it, you know.
18:48:21 Go to, you know, pot after after year, because we run out of money. And I think that if the the grants and the proposals are structured in the right way, that hopefully the people giving money will understand the logic there, and the importance so thank you for mentioning that because that is really important Belinda.
18:48:38 Sure. Yeah. And it the upfront costs are so important.
18:48:42 And you do get a lot of volume in the beginning. Everybody wants gardens.
18:48:45 I don't think there's anybody on chat or in general that doesn't want gardens.
18:48:50 It's just a a lot of commitment over time, and the infrastructure of getting the gardens up and going.
18:48:59 So maybe it's a 3 year period, you know, so you could space out infrastructure of building the items.
18:49:06 Do you know how much it costs to build one?
18:49:10 So I put that in my proposal. So I talked to Kurt about you know.
18:49:18 Would we want one bed per school? 3 beds for one school, like schools, are different sizes.
18:49:25 Their investment or excitement might be, for you know, multiple classes, or just one.
18:49:31 And so I'm going to send you a proposal that shows you a few different scenarios.
18:49:37 So I think one is just like one school, one bed, another is like 3 schools and 5 beds.
18:49:44 So start to give you an idea of kind of the the overall cost, and I think the end goal is that current and blend are obviously, like, you know, experts and can troubleshoot anything.
18:49:52 But we wanna have them train an army of people, or at least you know, level of people that can then go on and train others, so that after a year or 2, if enough people understand the system.
18:50:05 They can be doing the training and curtain. Belinda won't have to, you know.
18:50:08 We won't have to, but you know, invest in their time, and so the cost of maintaining the gardens will be less over time.
18:50:18 So that's important to consider as well.
18:50:20 And I think Stacy mentioned that the Audio Education Fund may also be something to look into that teachers could apply for funding gardens as well.
18:50:32 Okay.
18:50:31 I would also definitely contact Colleen garland a Darian clarity.
18:50:47 Yeah, I.
18:50:38 And this is sustainability department. They're awesome partners, and I'm sure they would be just thrilled to have a partner in this, you know, because they're over a lot of different things.
18:50:49 So thanks.
18:50:49 I think actually Stephen Pont of Austin Hhs, actually Texas, Hhs.
18:50:57 Mentioned her. So thank you for reminding me.
18:51:00 Yeah. And they have their own committee. So this would be a great presentation.
18:51:04 If you wanna take to Dairy and Clary, I'm sure she would love to hear that presentation and her environmental stewardship Advisory Committee for Austin Isd.
18:51:10 I'm sorry. Say, who is this? Again?
18:51:13 Derry and Clary, who Stacy just mentioned. She's she's over the environmental stewardship Advisory Committee for Austin Isd.
18:51:23 Okay.
18:51:22 I'll put her email in in the chat.
18:51:24 She says, sustainability director. Think of Aisd.
18:51:33 One other thing that I wanted to mention, per what you had discussed about people losing interest after a year or so is that if the kids are successful and become really involved and excited about this, and we get start getting yields and parents see food coming home and kids are cooking, I think
18:51:55 it'll actually the opposite will happen if that will will gain steam and gain acceptance and excitement about this to, you know.
18:52:03 Roll it out further at other schools, and, you know, offer it to more people.
18:52:09 So I'm hoping. That's that's what will happen.
18:52:16 We've seen that happen at Go Valley. Just we. Our goal is just throw a lot of stuff in and kind of like, just make it grow.
18:52:25 And you know, if you build it, they'll come, and but I'll go back to the curriculum real quick, you know.
18:52:30 Teachers, teach like gardening and growing bean seeds in the spring.
18:52:36 But the biggest deal for us this year was like, Hey, all this stuff grows in the fall like there's, you know, there's a cycle of growing stuff.
18:52:45 And when we were there were seeing the beans grow in the fall of the up, the bamboo folds.
18:52:50 People are just like, Oh, wow! And seeing butterflies in the fall, you know.
18:52:54 So it's kind of just a it's really, really important, I think, for kids and adults and teachers, you know, to see like, Hey, this whole cycle's happening like all the time.
18:53:08 So!
18:53:11 Yeah, I think you can build excitement for this.
18:53:15 So this is Kurt. In Nina's proposal.
18:53:20 You'll see that she talks about how this might be done over the time.
18:53:25 Because of the nature of planting. And how all this kind of comes together.
18:53:32 It's ideally suited to start in the spring and finish in the fall, because when it in the spring you're coming out of the winter time where you're going to be you could be building your beds if you wanted students to be involved with that in a high school situation if you have shop class or something that may
18:53:50 be applicable, but but you have putting into the infrastructure you also have planning the seedlings that you will do indoors to prepare them for transplanting them into the garden at the appropriate time.
18:54:04 So there's a lot of prep work involved in the spring which is not going to be the case in the fall.
18:54:11 And the fall. Typically speaking a lot of this stuff that you would be growing might already be planted in August, which isn't really going to give the kids a whole lot of time to get in on that early part but you will be planted in August which isn't really going to give the kids a whole lot of time to
18:54:33 get in on that early part, but you will be getting some of your produce in a little bit earlier, which means later in the fall semester.
18:54:38 Now, if you wanted to do it all in one year, starting in the fall, ending in the spring.
18:54:44 That could be done but it would be like teaching a kid how to build a car.
18:54:47 Starting with the chassis and everything, and we're gonna paint it.
18:54:52 And then in the next semester, we're gonna say, Okay, this is how you well, the chassis together.
18:54:56 It's a card before the horse situation. I know that that's probably not ideal.
18:55:02 A school curricula. But nevertheless, that's kind of the way the garden works.
18:55:13 Does anybody else have? Oh, sorry! Go!
18:55:13 And I, and I said to Kurt, We'll figure out a way to make it work.
18:55:20 Sorry with somebody asking something.
18:55:23 Yeah, I was gonna verify, if anyone else had any other questions, no worries.
18:55:30 Hey, Buddy? Well, Nina, Linda and Kurt, thank you so much for your presentation tonight.
18:55:37 We really appreciate it, doctor Edwards and I will make sure to add the proposal Nina has share that with us already.
18:55:44 We'll make sure to add it to the email that we will be sending out to also. Thank you.
18:55:47 Thank you.
18:55:47 Pleasure. Thank you so much.
18:55:49 Thank you, Mary. I actually updated a little bit, Mary, so I'll send you the revision before you send it to everyone.
18:55:56 Okay, thank you. So I believe we still don't have a forum. So we're gonna go ahead and move onto your items.
18:56:03 A few things. So we are looking at some of our priorities for next year before we get that to that Juliet.
18:56:17 I know you sent us an email right now. Would you like to ask question at this time?
18:56:17 Yeah, as a community pediatrician. I just wanted to know how to go about revising the school athletic form for Aisd.
18:56:29 There are a couple of items that I look at every year when addressing this form, that I think could could have some changes specifically, aisc seems to be the only local district that requires this April fifteenth deadline for physicals which I feel like is encouraging.
18:56:50 Our students to use urgent cares to get a quick physical when you know.
18:56:56 After that deadline rather than just going in for their annual checkup with their primary care, Doc or their medical home, as well as controversy surrounding the use of female menstrual history on the form it may be relevant to their health and their physician should know
18:57:17 but you know, is that necessary to be on the form, etc.
18:57:22 So I just don't know if this was an appropriate format to start addressing some of those changes, or if we should, if I need to, go somewhere else for that.
18:57:52 Great.
18:57:57 Great.
18:57:31 I can absolutely help link us with appletic. See what the URL requirements are, and then see if we can get some of those to help with athletic. See what the URL requirements are, and then see if we can get some of those to help our physicians and our.
18:57:58 Thank you.
18:57:58 So from the survey, what we've seen so far, some of the priorities that we would are interested in next year.
18:58:05 We're out, Jordan outdoor learning and mental health.
18:58:10 Some more small community work next year, community more inclusion for Spad and human sexuality, curricula and pride.
18:58:16 Week. Is there any other ones that we would like to add?
18:58:19 I know that's something that we can't vote on right now, but just so that we have an idea if you would like to at this time.
18:58:34 School affairs.
18:58:34 Go first, adding it on!
18:58:38 I'm interested in adding access to water on school playgrounds.
18:58:45 As we're we're talking about watering all of our new vegetable gardens.
18:58:53 Thank you.
18:58:51 We need to water our children, too. So many of the school playgrounds have water fountains that don't work and are outdated.
18:58:59 Thank you, Nina. Thank you, Juliet. Anybody else.
18:59:05 Don't be shy.
18:59:10 Okay. Now, we sent out an email, and we have everyone's response. Yet.
18:59:18 But I'm gonna let you know a little bit about the responses that we did receive.
18:59:21 3 individuals were nominated for the chair position.
18:59:25 We had Dr. Clara Sellinger that was nominated.
18:59:29 We had Dr. Nick Wagner, and we also had Belinda nominated as well.
18:59:34 So we just check him in with Doctor Salinger and Belinda.
18:59:40 If this is something that you're interested, you can take some time to think about it, and you can contact Dr.
18:59:45 Edwards and I, and you know, perhaps this is something that is your true calling that you were not aware of.
18:59:52 But it is, and you want to take that opportunity because you would do a wonderful job.
18:59:57 And some time to think about it. If you are also interested on and being the chair, and you haven't filled out your form yet, and you would.
19:00:05 You're interested in becoming the chair. Please feel free to contact us as well.
19:00:08 I think we got something in the chat 1 s.
19:00:15 Thank you. Yes.
19:00:25 I I will confirm that Addison and I will let you know I will confirm that.
19:00:30 Thank you for asking.
19:00:37 So we are, gonna go ahead and adjourn the meeting early today, unless, oh, sorry.
19:00:44 I just wanna check if there anyone else that had any items they would like to forget. Nina.
19:00:47 Sorry. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
19:00:48 I know that the gardening was maybe a little bit longer than we anticipated, but I did also prepare the school help fair proposal.
19:00:54 Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry.
19:00:59 I'm sorry I was worried. Yes, please do. I apologize for that?
19:01:02 Oh, no! Worries at all. So there's something that also fulfills the mandate or the recommendations of the school.
19:01:14 Health policy is school fares. I believe that's mentioned a couple of times, and I think that's been done kind of with a range of schools, and I happen to know someone who put on health fares at Zilker elementary and 78704 for 5 years and she gave me like
19:01:34 a huge wealth of information about it, and it just seems like an amazing way to reach kids and their families and communities and to expose them to healthy food and to bring in farmers and gardeners to bring in natural paths and nutritionists to bring in a mind-bodied mind body like craft
19:01:59 and art projects meditation. There can be, you know, all kinds of interactive events around physical and mental health.
19:02:07 It's a way for the community to be vendors personally and for its relationships, to ask questions of all kinds of practitioners.
19:02:20 We could bring in Saint Eds, dell there are all kinds of people who could come in and help with screenings, so that people could get a reference for their blood pressure or their glucose, or their cholesterol or their vmi or whatever, and then develop plans, for improving their
19:02:38 health, you know, health, health goals, personal health goals, so there's like a whole structure to this that's really exciting.
19:02:47 It put together like a very detailed proposal. It includes having vendors that are sensitive to the community.
19:02:57 See you want. And communities of color, vendors of color, practitioners of color.
19:03:04 People who understand the community you want, for example, and I think it's actually trustees of potato who mentioned having people from other countries who use herbs for medicinal purposes to teach about that, because people do that here today from their you know, they have brought it from the countries that they're from
19:03:27 we would probably want to start with underserved schools where they have, you know, less access to you know they don't have health, equity so it'd be a way to sort of you know.
19:03:39 Celebrate and acknowledge to underserved schools, especially after the pandemic.
19:03:46 When more kids than ever are suffering from both physical and mental health and obesity and diabetes to rates are up.
19:03:57 So some of the ways that success was measured at the Zilker event with their there was increased attendance over the 5 years that they held it positive feedback from kids in adults.
19:04:11 Vendors returned and reported positive engagement.
19:04:16 The community, loved the fares. And then there were Grant people who provided grants like fuel up to pay 6 fuel up to play 60, which is an organization that provides sports equipment.
19:04:31 So in exchange for that you have to do something like hold a health fair. So it's really a win-win for so many reasons.
19:04:39 Kids can get excited about their school by, you know, promoting the event, making a T-shirts flyers, a logo for the event. That kind of thing.
19:04:50 So there would be, you know, point people at each school, and then ambassadors who are like, you know, children who wanna take part in this.
19:04:59 So it's really sort of, you know, a very holistic, integrative event that brings together the whole community.
19:05:07 And then another way to measure the success is that each attendee is handed a map that has, like a legend of what, where everything is, you know, at the event, and then checks off the boxes, writes on their health goals.
19:05:24 Like they could include information that we want to know, including what was your favorite thing about the event, and then they drop it off at the Raffle station, and you know, if they have a chance to win prizes.
19:05:36 So we were to ask vendors to contribute. You know, all kinds of free food prices, all kinds of other things.
19:05:43 So. So I also got a cost for that. So most of everything gets donated for fares.
19:05:52 Vendors donate their time. They donate food. You can only on a story sketch somebody who's gonna donate.
19:05:57 You know, power bars, people donate fruits and vegetables, and a lot of other things.
19:06:04 Somebody who brings a message chair might donate their time.
19:06:08 Nutritionists, on and on, and on, and then, you know, tables and chairs are freely available at schools.
19:06:16 So in terms of materials. It's not really a lot that needs to be purchased.
19:06:20 So most of the investment is in screen printing shirts.
19:06:26 If you decide to do that, and it's not necessary, and then the cost for organicing the event.
19:06:32 And I have a list of like 30 to 40 things that the organizer does.
19:06:37 It's like, really intricate, so just interesting cause.
19:06:42 Now we see what goes into an event, so I can have that proposal in your hands, so you can take a look at what would be involved, and the person I talked to said that the time investment is about 50 70 h before the event, 8 h on the day of the event and then the time to plan the event is 6
19:07:03 months to a year. So the organizers fee would be about $3,500, but if you haven't organizer working on multiple events at the same time, you know, then the cost per school would decrease.
19:07:19 So. So I have numbers, details. A huge list of vendors, a lot of other information that you can take a look at.
19:07:28 And I just think this is like a wonderful way to service and serve communities, probably starting with the ones that need it. The most.
19:07:39 I'm gonna say that as having our cornice full health events, it'd be really nice to have access to the vendors and know more vendors that are available.
19:07:50 So I know for me personally, as as a PE teacher.
19:07:53 That's something that would be. I would really like to bring to my school.
19:07:56 To bring. I'm sorry, like particular vendors in the community.
19:07:59 But well, the the health, for just in general bringing the vendors well, I know some campuses receive a lot of outreach, and some campuses don't really receive as much outreach, and it'd be nice to have the opportunity for all campuses.
19:08:18 Yeah, I mean, that's definitely the goal. So you know, all you need is, you know, you send out a questionnaire to schools.
19:08:27 You find out what the community wants, what parents want, and then you sort of, you know, tailor, the fair to that community in schools, interests.
19:08:38 Community, or excuse me, central health is already doing this at its core.
19:08:44 And they have a whole infrastructure of marketing team to do this, that they that's their job.
19:08:52 And I've done them at church and we've done them at Akens High School Akens High School now, has mobile van.
19:09:02 Would they do medical care on Tuesdays? So I would totally reach out to them, because it is their goal to do more community engagements like this, and they have an infrastructure to do it, and they're already they're already doing it.
19:09:17 Often the ones that I've done with them in the past have been more for unf unfunded and unhoused folks.
19:09:26 But not necessarily, you know. Of course their umbrella of services is wide, so I would totally reach out to them.
19:09:35 Their marketing folks. One of the the people that I was working with has moved on.
19:09:41 She's now community care. But I know there's somebody still on that in that role.
19:09:46 Okay, yeah, we talked to somebody from Central Health last week about the gardening proposal, but I'm but it's 6 to learn that they're also very interested in this.
19:09:58 There's also the Austin Health Equity unit, Mobile Van.
19:10:00 Yeah.
19:10:00 Program which might be something similar. So they come in and they offer all kinds of screenings and resources and you know, the exciting thing also is that they give people all kinds of information about affordable health insurance rights.
19:10:16 The parents will come away with, you know, armed with all kinds of things, don't really know where to get elsewhere.
19:10:21 Right. The medical assistance program card is funded by our property tax.
19:10:26 That's the program that funds community care.
19:10:31 And you can have them boots on the ground they're doing the applications at the event, you know.
19:10:38 Bring their documents to the event, to be able to get screened, and then we'll leave with their medical assistance program card that they can then go to community care for primary care and get referrals to specialists.
19:10:52 It's great!
19:10:50 Yeah, that sounds great. So you and I should talk to figure out that piece of it, because that's excellent.
19:10:57 Yeah.
19:10:57 And C, a, r, C. A, R. D. Is is that how it's spelled?
19:11:04 What are we spelling? I'm sorry.
19:11:04 Card card.
19:11:07 The map card medical assistance program, C. A, R. D. M. A. P.
19:11:16 Stands for medical assistance program card.
19:11:20 Oh, okay, thank you.
19:11:22 And you can Google, you can just Google map, card and it'll pop up with all the information what it takes to qualify.
19:11:30 And all the information.
19:11:30 Great.
19:11:35 Any other thoughts, questions.
19:11:43 Back to school, bash. 6,000 families. Wow! That sounds good.
19:11:52 Yeah, I think that choosing a the appropriate time for the community is key.
19:11:57 So yeah, for some school's August at the beginning of the school year would be perfect.
19:12:02 But with both of these the gardening and the school.
19:12:06 Ferris, I think. What's so great about both proposals is you get a lot of input from the community, and then they feel really invested in it because you've asked them what they want and need.
19:12:16 And you're prepared to help realize what their wishes.
19:12:32 So anybody else have any other questions.
19:12:40 Nobody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Because that was a lot of presentations today.
19:12:46 So thank you for taking. Thank you both of them. We really appreciate it.
19:12:48 Well, thank you for giving me the floor and allowing me the time to bring these initiatives, because I'm very passionate about them, and I hope that we can move them forward and I want to ask if if this would be the time to ask you what what the next steps, would be or
19:13:05 if you need time to think about what happens now with those proposals.
19:13:10 Also, what we're gonna do is we'll email them out to the shack.
19:13:14 We'll have the updated version that you're gonna send me.
19:13:18 We'll email it to them. And then at our next meeting, we're gonna though. That was, we were hoping to vote tonight. Thank you for those of you for being here.
19:13:24 But we didn't have quorum of what items we'd like to include. So at the end of the year we do an end of year report.
19:13:31 So for next year. These are things of initiatives that we're looking at.
19:13:33 Well. The next shares, and the next check numbers.
19:13:35 Okay. Thank you.
19:13:38 Does anybody else have anything they would like to discuss as items for members.
19:13:48 Thank you.
19:13:56 Alrighty, we're gonna go ahead and call the meeting at 7 30.
19:14:00 Thank you. Everyone for being here tonight. We will provide you more information about our next meeting that one is gonna have a lot more information due to the some of the things that we were unable to do tonight.