FG NTA Grant Activities

NTA’s grant to First Green is to support the launch of local programs and host workshops for superintendents and teachers.   In February, superintendents from Oregon and southern Washington met at Persimmon Golf Club to hear about starting First Green programs.  The program had the major elements of the First Green program that NTA hosted at Meydenbauer Center on December 3, 2007. 

Oregon workshop

Lynn McKay, who teaches at Interlake HS in Bellevue, told superintendents about the many ways that her horticulture and floral programs are enriched by the support from Steve Kealy and Randy Leifer.  Steve gave some of his perspective on working what it takes to work with teachers and schools.  He and Paul Backman also showed superintendents how First Green meets the community outreach requirement for all seeking Audubon International certification.

FG mailings and materials

Packets of information on First Green were mailed to all superintendents from the Dec. 3 and Feb. 28 meetings.  A spiral bound set of field trip lesson plans was sent in a second mailing.  Both of these give superintendents some materials to share with their own local greens committees and with teachers they contact. 

Connecting with schools

A number of superintendents found that teachers they worked with in the past were no longer at the schools, school programs had changed, and that they’d like First Green assistance with the process of contacting the teacher and school.  In April and May, we got school names from superintendents and made some contacts with schools.  Most asked us to contact them again in late August, 2008.   That is happening now. Lynn McKay is helping us with these contacts since, as a teacher, she knows many of the schools and teachers. 

The first round of school contacts will be in Western Washington, with approximately 40 schools on the list.  The goal is to get names and contact information to share with superintendents during the month of September.

Updating the teacher databases

Jeff Gullikson’s workshops from 2003-2007 had a total of 98 teachers who attended from 67 schools across Western WA.  A number of superintendents attended these workshops and had some interaction with teachers.  However, teachers changed schools, stopped teaching, etc. and the teacher contact list is now outdated.  We will be contacting all teachers and schools on the list to see what has happened with the resource kits that were given out and update names and contact information.  Our expectation is that many schools across the state still need to be connected to superintendents and golf courses.   We’ll share this with superintendents when it is completed.

Workshop For Superintendents and Teachers

October 10, 2008 is the First Green Workshop at Glendale.  Mark your calendars!   Washington teachers have a state educational release day so we’ve planned a program for teachers and superintendents that will give continuing education units. The agenda will be lively: speakers, prizes, great food, and time to talk with your teacher about your own local program.  The focus will be on connecting teachers and superintendents from Western WA, since that’s the teacher contacts that we’re getting now.  If you are from another part of the state and want to attend, please let us know. Registration forms will be sent out in early September.

 There will be similar workshops in Eastern WA and in Oregon in early 2009. 

FG Web site

The First Green web site is now live.  We will be getting photos and descriptions of field trips from superintendents and teachers to put on the web site. 

 NTA support for First Green is significant and much appreciated.