Community-School Parks

Green May Day at Trinity, 28th St. Schools

On Saturday, May 1, more than 220 parents, students, teachers, neighbors and other volunteers added color to Trinity Street and 28th Street elementary schools, from building new flowerbeds to refreshing murals. People for Parks helped organize the activities under the umbrella of Big Sunday, an annual citywide beautification campaign. PFP and Big Sunday donated $2,000 for materials and healthy food and snacks at the two schools.

Some teams prepared the Trinity garden for new beds, while others assembled 4’x8’ container beds with recycled plastic lumber donated by Mud Baron and the help of Steve Anderson and the L.A. Conservation Corps. Still others planted flowers in four concrete planters on the main courtyard, in the teacher’s patio, and in front of a huge new mural they painted. Volunteers also replaced three dead street trees with new oaks.

Three weeks later, Trinity teachers assembled three more raised planting beds.  When the last bungalow is removed from the playground this summer, they hope to move some beds to the future site of the Trinity Street Instructional Garden.

Construction to Begin on First CSPs

Construction is set to begin this summer on the first two Community-School Parks in the LAUSD. The District has approved $500,000 for work at Trinity and Vine Street elementary schools.

The U.S. Department of Labor has also awarded $160,000 for People for Parks to train at-risk youth in sustainable landscaping. PFP is partnering with the Urban Schools Foundation to develop and incubate “green teams” for the pilot CSPs, which could start up as early as this fall.

Also, the Green School Coalition has been meeting every other month with LAUSD facilities staff. The coalition is led by activists, nonprofits, teachers and parents, and is pushing for gardens and green space at every school. For more information, contact james.sohn@lausd.org.

Working Group Advances Plans for First Four CSPs

The Community-School Parks Working Group recently met to coordinate work on the first four CSPs. Attending the Oct. 27 meeting at the L.A. Unified School District’s Facilities Services Division were Ana Lasso, Acting Director of LAUSD Joint-Use Programs; Joel Alvarez, L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks; Mary Rodriguez, Councilman Tom LaBonge’s Education/Field Deputy; Jason Elias of SEIU Local 721; and John Perez, Carlyle Hall, Carrie Sutkin and Andrew Oretz of People for Parks.

The Working Group discussed each partner’s responsibilities in establishing the CSP Program:

• LAUSD will design and build the CSPs. Lasso announced that she had $2 million for landscaping, fence upgrades, play equipment, and grass for the first four sites. Barring future staff cuts, Beyond the Bell may provide after-school and weekend programs to be paid for by a Friends group, PFP or another partner.
   
• The City of Los Angeles will provide peer review on the work and, in cases like Vine Street, will actually fund improvements. The City tentatively pledged $830,000 in QUIMBY funds for work at Vine Street Elementary.
   
• PFP will seek grants, coordinate in-kind support and private fundraising, assist with community outreach, and facilitate peer review. All three parties agreed to begin work on joint-use agreements required for the Trinity Street and Vine Street CSPs.
   
• SEIU will provide labor support and outreach. It was recommended to add the Teamsters, the union representing school janitors, to the CSP working group.

PFP agreed to draft a CSP status report focused on the first four case studies: Vine Street (City Council District 4), Trinity Street (Council District 9), Beethoven (District 11) and Calvert (District 3). The draft report will be presented to the Board of Education and the L.A. City Council for approval, then posted on the PFP website.

In early November, Sutkin attended a state workshop on Proposition 84–AB31 funding. AB31 will make $180 million in state bonds available in late 2010. Projects must serve communities with a median household income below $48,000 for a family of four, and less than four acres of open space per 1,000 residents. In the neighborhood around Trinity Street, for example, median income is $29,100 and there is less than one acre of open space per 1,000 residents.

Extra points will be awarded to projects for new parks open to the public seven days a week (CSPs meet this test) and that include elements of sustainability and public safety. In spring 2008, PFP and landscape architect Blue Green conducted five community meetings near Trinity Street and 28^th Street schools.

Those meetings were possible thanks to a $50,000 feasibility grant from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. PFP completed a study on how to best design and implement CSPs in the L.A. River watershed before the SMMC grant was halted in late 2008.

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