Community School Case Study: William Cramp School
Interview With William Reed
Community School Coordinator
I spoke with William Reed, the Community School Coordinator at William Cramp School, to discuss the path his school has taken to become a community school. Reed was one of the staff who helped William Cramp adopt the community school model, so he is intimately familiar with the impact this journey has had on the way the school functions.
During our call, we covered the following topics:
The process for adopting the community school model
The process for partnering with local organizations
The schools’s practices for communicating with its partner organizations
Garden programming that has emerged at the school since adopting the community school model
The school’s new green partners
Factors that contributed to influenced the school’s success
Key Takeaways
Adopting the Community School Model
William came in as a Community Partnerships Coordinator through the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development PHENND. The school already had many elements of a community school, with a portfolio of about 50 partner organizations. At the end of the year a mayoral community school initiative formalized and fast-tracked the process when Reed’s application for the school was accepted. Supportive staff and engaged families helped to make the transition possible.
Process for Partnership
When William Cramp was first becoming a community school, it connected with the Trust for Public Land, who designed a new playground with student input that included a community garden. Interpret Green then came on to assist with the garden and landscape at the school, which helped to reduce the heat island effect the school was experiencing and jump-started the school’s garden programming.
The Trust for Public Land also connected William Cramp with Mural Arts, an organization that painted a mural around the school, enlisting the help of parents and students. This work, which involved the creation of a regularly meeting parent group, vastly improved family engagement. They also provided important support for the community garden, and brought in the Philadelphia Orchard Project, who helped develop a food forest on school grounds.
Communication
The school tries to hold monthly partner meetings, with the objective of getting partners to know each other and work as a team. Partners were part of the initial needs assessment process and strategic plan.
Garden Programming
Green initiatives at the school have had an impact that extends beyond improved learning. Reed found that students who were engaged in the garden program had better attendance, and parent involvement with the Mural Arts program was also associated with lower rates of student absenteeism. Interpret Green also ran a garden club in partnership with First Up. A group of about 25 students would learn about local flora and fauna, the fundamentals of gardening, and important lessons about sustainability which tied back to their school curricula. Interpret Green also set up cameras that provided a live feed of the birdhouses in the school garden.
The schoolyard now doubles as a community garden, in a neighborhood with very few green spaces. This yard/garden provides a space for families to visit, which promotes a positive relationship between the school and local community, in sharp contrast to the adversarial relationship which can emerge in some districts. Culturally significant plants are also being grown on school grounds, further enriching the relationship between the school and its community. The school also has sent teachers to a garden training program over the summer, where they learn how to run their own garden programs in-house.
Green Partners
The Common Market, Greener Partners, Interpret Green, The Trust for Public Land, and Historic Fair Hill.
The Path to Success
Reed emphasized that the school was incredibly fortunate to work with the Trust for Public Land, who were extremely competent and committed, and introduced him to Interpret Green. The cascade of partnerships that has followed, with organizations who are invested in supporting the school and turning the grounds into an impactful and accessible green asset, has been transformative.
Interview With Craig Johnson
Founder and CEO
Interpret Green
Key Takeaways
Adopting the Community School Model
Current Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney was encouraged by his staff to look into the community schools model, and adopted it as part of his platform. William Cramp was one of the first Philly schools to convert to this model under the new initiative, in partnership with the Trust for Public Land (TPL).
Process for Partnership
TPL was working to remediate the school grounds using impact grant funding, and partnered with Interpret Green to reimagine the school grounds as a nature and environmental education center. This “environmental learning landscape” included a weather station, air quality monitoring station, moisture and temperature sensors, bird baths and feeders with digital cameras, and more, all in service of allowing students and teachers to “see the invisible.” Interpret Green’s plan became the highest-funded community school project in the city, and was recognized with regional awards.
Critical Placemaking
As he has worked on transforming the school grounds at William Cramp, Johnson argues that students should be the focus of attention in any project aimed at reimagining the living habitat surrounding a school. Johnson refers to this relationship as the “counsel of all beings.” The places where we work, learn, and play, he says, must be regarded as a habitat. Abundant and or paved and bleak, these spaces are habitats, and it is a fallacy to think of ourselves as separate from nature. Johnson emphasizes that diversity of flora and fauna is essential to these habitats. After TPL and Interpret Green redesigned the William Cramp grounds, birds began to show up for the first time.
Pandemic
William Cramp Community School has faced a similar challenge to Enrico Fermi School No. 17 when it comes to maintaining the garden over the summer. Their solution was to found the Habitat Garden Club, which was highly active until the pandemic hit. However, since the initial disruption, the pandemic has provided new opportunities for outdoor learning to proliferate. To this end, Johnson has gotten involved with two national organizations, Green Schoolyards America and Children and Nature Network to further his work turning schools’ grounds into onsite nature centers. In response to the pandemic, Green Schoolyards America has made a guide for districts that want to green their schools.
Inspiration, Not Education
In his work, Johnson sees the core opportunity not in education, but in inspiration. He feels the merit of these endeavors does not lie in their support of academic enrichment, or in their adherence to academic standards. Instead, he sees them as addressing issues of health and humanity. His installations create chances for students to explore, get dirty, and watch their environment grow and change. For younger children, an exploratory environment is far more enriching than one that is academic. These environments also allow students to begin to recognize phenology, or the timing of natural events in relationship to environmental conditions. Johnson shared that there is a USA National Phenology Network that crowdsources long term tracking of changes in these natural systems.
Impact
Because of this different emphasis, Johnson finds that he gets more support from people working in public health than in education. The habitats he creates, he says, are places where students can learn “to do nothing, really well.” This sort of space is vital for all children, especially those who are processing trauma. Dappled light, the sounds of water and birds, and other biophilic elements are highly rehabilitative. Yet school grounds everywhere have been imagined as nothing more than parking lots and playgrounds. They have not been seen as places to explore, to welcome nature, and to marvel at life processes.
All of this, Johnson cautions, can only happen at the speed of trust. The process of transformation takes time. But by shifting our priorities and patiently making change, we can reinvent our learning habitats to be nourishing places, full of vitality.
