Warren, Vinalhaven schools explore community learning

Pupils and students at Warren Community and Vinalhaven schools will be thinking “outside the box,” this year when they step outside their schools to participate in Project CO-SEED.

Project CO-SEED is a nationally-renowned “place-based education” program operated by Antioch New England Institute in Keene, N.H., which is part of the nationwide Antioch University System.

Warren and Vinalhaven have been selected to participate in the three-year “place-based education” grant program worth $100,000 per year per school. The program takes students into their communities to learn about their natural or cultural environments.

For example, Warren Community School’s SEED Team has come up with several ideas for projects, including helping a high school student earn his Eagle Scout badge building a greenhouse for the kindergarten through sixth-grade school. As in any CO-SEED project, pupils use academics in achieving a learning goal, be it math, science, language, social studies or art.

The team is also considering rehabilitating a nature trail near the Warren school and designing exterior and interior signs with the relatively new school’s name.

“It is a hands-on, real-world approach to teaching that not only leads to higher student achievement, but also strengthens ties between schools and their communities,” Delia Clark, CO-SEED project director, said in a press release.

Vinalhaven’s team plans to have a visioning session Thursday, Sept. 1 at a teacher workshop to decide where the school is headed in the next five years, school leader Mike Felton said Thursday.

Island Institute’s education outreach officer, Ruth Kermish-Allen, said Thursday, the island school already has “incredible” place-based programs happening at a new state-of-the-art school. The school has programs geared toward learning about boat building, oral history and geographic information system mapping, she said.

The plan is to define “how do we tie it all together,” she said of the new school and learning program.

“The whole place-based education is something we’ve been striving for for a long time,” SAD 8 Superintendent George Joseph said Thursday.

The Warren school was nominated for the grant program by the Quebec-Labrador Foundation, an international conservation and community service organization, which runs coastal and marine projects from a field desk in Friendship.

Antioch New England chose Island Institute in Rockland and Vinalhaven School for a CO-SEED partnership. The island’s K-12 school has an enrollment of roughly 200. Warren has 315 pupils.

“It demonstrates the strength of island schools in the nation because of the competitiveness of this program,” Rob Snyder, Island Institute vice president of programs, said Thursday. “It’s a strong recognition of the good work going on [on islands], especially in the age of consolidation.”

The bulk of the grant money is used to pay for CO-SEED facilitators and conferences for team members. About $3,000 to $5,000 is allotted to each school for mini-grants to help carry out project ideas, Warren Community School Principal Ann Kirkpatrick said Wednesday at a team meeting.

Warren’s and Vinalhaven’s SEED teams joined other experienced teams in June for a weeklong conference at the Highland Center in Bretton Woods, N.H., to learn about CO-SEED and to develop an action plan, Kirkpatrick said.

In Warren and Vinalhaven, the SEED teams comprise a mix of faculty and community members. With grant funds, QLF has hired Sasha Kutsy of Washington as a part-time place-based educator to work with teachers, pupils, community members and Antioch faculty in getting Warren Community School skilled in the new learning style. Nicole Ouellette of Fort Kent has been hired full-time to work with Vinalhaven and the Island Institute. Chris Toy, a former principal at Freeport Middle School will oversee CO-SEED programs at both Maine sites.

Projects start with ideas aimed at connecting students, community and curriculum with the natural and cultural environment, and are followed with research, collaboration and implementation, Kirkpatrick said. With the two schools so close, she said a joint project is possible.

At a 5-7 p.m. open house Thursday at the Warren school, the team will present the CO-SEED program to the pupils, parents and community members. At the same time, the group will try to recruit others for help. A community survey also will be distributed.