December 2025

In this issue, we celebrate the Boston Public Schoolyards Teacher Champions. These are the school staff that spearhead the stewardship of our schoolyards, vital spaces, that provide, for many of our students, their primary nature experiences.

We highlight Juliet Parry, her students, and their heart felt work at Brighton High.

Outdoor Learning Spotlight

BPS Teacher Champions

The 4th year of our Teaching & Learning Outdoors (TLO) Champions program officially kicked off on October 16th, with the first meeting at the Curley K-8 hosted by Curley early childhood science teacher Jenny Frazier. At the time applications were accepted, the program had enrolled 34 champions. 20 of these were returning champions from previous years, and 14 represented new applicants. A total of 28 schools were represented across this year’s applications, with an increasingly larger representation of secondary schools. A long-term goal of the program is to think about how best to ensure retention and meeting attendance of new applicants, in order to broaden and deepen the impact of the work across schools.

With much more limited available funding this year, the program has faced some adjustments in the scope of the work taken on by teachers. Meetings were streamlined a bit more this year, with a total of six meetings taking place across the school year. Champions are asked to commit to attending at least three meetings in order to be eligible for a stipend. In order to compensate for reduced stipend funding this year, champions now have the option to host and facilitate one of the meetings around a topic of interest or expertise. The extra planning hours involved in planning and leading these sessions allow teachers the opportunity to earn academic ladder credits, which can be accrued and used towards salary lane changes. Additionally, allowing teachers this opportunity this year was also done with the intention of building teacher leadership capacity around outdoor learning.

Here are some highlights from the three meetings that have taken place to date:

• Jenny Frazier from the Curley hosted our first meeting at the Curley around native plants and seed-saving on October 16th. She offered some milkweed-saving tips, cold stratification guidance, and tips for identifying and eradicating invasive species that outcompete local native plants, such as black swallow wort. Check out some of the photos from the first meeting below…
• The second and third meetings took place at Campbell Resource Center (November 12th) and virtually (December 9th), respectively, and were facilitated by Molly and Elizabeth around the sharing of outdoor learning resources. Attending teachers were able to share updates as well as lesson/activity ideas, seasonal garden maintenance ideas, community partner recommendations, and book/app/other digital resources.

Champions are looking forward to the fourth meeting, which will take place at the Hennigan K-6. It will be facilitated by Hennigan teacher champions Molly Jacobs and Noor Al-Ghanem.

Jenny showed how to efficiently separate milkweed floss (silk) from seeds for ease of storage. She uses an old stop sign to signal to students when they need to wait for teacher directions before hands-on investigating in the schoolyard.

Jenny shows teachers how she organizes her shed full of materials to facilitate outdoor learning!

My students and colleagues love being outside and in the garden space. They benefit from learning about the natural world and how our food grows and seeing it's progress.

Molly Jacobs, Hennigan

In Their Words-Teacher Champions

We asked our teacher champions how participating in this program has supported their teaching and school communities.

"I love the community of educators who are passionate about outdoor learning. We have been able to share resources, spread the word and our work around our schools and have been able to support each other in creating lasting meaningful change in our schools and how they view outdoor learning."

Noor al-Ghanam, Hennigan

"This program has impacted my teaching in ways that have provided more engagement to the curriculum, a greater love of student learning and UDL / WIDA approaches that truly benefit and enhance all students."

Diana Katsikaris, Trotter

"It has increased my confidence as a teacher to use the outdoor learning spaces and add it into the curriculum as well as support other teachers in the district to use the limited outdoor spaces in the city."

Lauren Nickerson, Harvard-Kent

"Being the outdoor teaching and learning champion has allowed me to learn from peers at other sites, connect with community based partners and get what I need to be successful teaching outdoors. I have committed to teaching 4 classes a week outdoors this school year!"

Jessica McNIff, Samuel Adams

"This program has given me the necessary support and resources to go from wishing for an outdoor program to being able to set an example for my colleagues and show them what is possible in terms of outdoor learning."

Cora Carey, Dudley Street Charter

"This program has really been great. It has opened my eyes to outdoor ideas for field trips, grants and activities for my school garden. I organized a field trip to the Arboretum, I applied for a garden development grant and I won a grant to the National Ag Conference in Utah."

LeRoy Attles, Haynes EEC

"As an outdoor teaching and learning champion I appreciated the opportunity to come together with like minded colleagues and be engaged in sharing ideas and strategies that helps me be more effective when bringing students outdoors to learn. The resources provided by the program have enhanced what we were already trying to do in developing our outdoor space as an intentional learning space."

Dean Martin, Clap

Gus Schumacher Award

On October 8th, at its Annual Fall Harvest Party at its Somerville headquarters Green City Growers (GCG) honored Friends of the Boston Schoolyards (FOTBS) with their annual Gus Schumacher Award for Advocacy of Agriculture, Farming and Food System Education. The award celebrates the legendary and beloved Gus Schumacher, Massachusetts’ former Commissioner of Food and Agriculture. He was a lifelong advocate for local farm products, promoting farm-to-table access and supporting farms, farmers, food, and families in both Massachusetts and nationwide. In his opening remarks, Green City Growers CEO Christopher Grallert said, “We are so grateful to our community of partners and friends, and love welcoming them to our space to celebrate that each year.”

Chris thanked FOTBS for their energy and commitment to ensuring that Boston’s school students have access to green, sustainable, and safe places to play and explore. In his remarks he said that since 1995 members of FOTBS have been transforming formerly unused areas of Boston Public Schoolyards  into vibrant gardens. Due to their efforts, thousands of students have learned about the joy of growing their own food. Mary Smoyer and Alicia Zipp, the founders of FOTBS then shared a brief history of FOTBS and thanked GCG for this honor. Chris then presented a beautiful plaque to every member of the board most of whom were in attendance. The plaques read:

In recognition of your selfless commitment to expanding garden programs across Boston Public Schools. Through your tireless advocacy and support thousands of students now know the joy of growing their own food. Your work continues the vision of GusSchumacher to create a greener, more sustainable future rooted in community, equity, and education.

Thank you, Green City Growers. We are honored.

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