Educating Tomorrow

NYC Council Member Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope) joined students and parents on Tuesday, March 26 to launch a pilot program at P.S. 154 to replace the Styrofoam lunch trays with trays made from sugar cane fiber. The new environmentally friendly trays are designed to break down within 45 days. In contrast, Styrofoam trays take around 10,000 years to break down. Some believe the trays excrete toxic chemicals into the children's hot food.

The NYC Department of Education uses 850,000 trays a day which adds up to over 4 million trays a week. Brooklyn Properties and The Juice Box are the official sponsors of the pilot program. The Booklyn Paper covered the story, along with a number of blogs.

An alarming majority of schools aren't even recycling. Paper recycling would generate roughly $235,000 a year. Glass, metal and plastic recycling could generate approximately $513,000 per year for a total of $748,000 in lost revenue. Additionally, transporting waste to landfills is getting increasingly expensive, having risen 300% over the past ten years.

Could recycling pay for the cost of converting to earth-friendly trays?

Councilmember de Blasio has also introduced legislation, Intro 609, which would prohibit the use of Styrofoam by City agencies and food establishments. McDonald's stop using Styrofoam packaging in 1990. The cities of Berkeley, California and Portland, Oregon were some of the first to prohibit polystyrene food packaging. Although the trays are commonly known as Styrofoam trays, Styrofoam is a licensed trademark of its manufacturer, the Dow Chemical Company.

I know it's been a really long time since I've blogged, but I've been working hard this Winter and now am ready for Spring!

Coquille and I joined the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's Master Compost Program.   I've scheduled a worm composting workshop put on by BBG at my school.  It's from 4-6pm at my school in downtown Brooklyn at 345 Dean Street on Tuesday, April 29th (it's the Tuesday after Spring Break).

I also received a $1,000 grant from Park Slope Civic Council to help start the recycling program at my school.  I attached the plan that I came up with here too.  It still isn't finalized and there is the overwhelming issues of collection and storage that I still can't quite figure out since my custodian shot down these ideas and other that they suggested where again not quite right.  I might turn out that each time the paper is full in the classrooms the teacher or a student or even parent volunteer will have to take the bag out side to a storage site out of the building.  It's kind of a drag, but I can't think of another way right now and I really hope people will be on board to do that.  We'll begin with paper recycling in the classroom with the first $1,000.  I also wrote a grant to donorschoose.org for the rest of the money to do bottles and cans in the cafeterias and main office:  http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=170652

Anyway, that's the news on compost and recycling at my school.  Let me know what you've been up to this Winter?  Email me at mathjosi@yahoo.com if you want to come to the worm workshop or if you want to talk grants and school recycling ideas.

Dear New York Times Journalist,

The NY Times has consistently demonstrated a commitment to covering issues important to NYC communities. I write to illuminate just such an issue.
 
I am part of the NYC School Recycling Action Committee—a grassroots movement consisting of NYC educators, parents, and members of NYC communities concerned about the lack of recycling in NYC schools. We are striving to create a movement that educates children to be environmentally aware; to take the environmental/recycling laws of NYC seriously; and to put mandated recycling programs in place in our NYC schools.

A recent WNYC program estimates just under 10 percent of NYC school waste is recycled. Considering there are 1.1 million students and 80,000 educators in NYC K-12 schools, there’s a lot of recycling carelessly entering the waste stream. Try to imagine all the books, paper, cardboard, milk cartons and beverage containers that 1,200 public and approximately 900 private schools produce during the school year. We have—and it’s overwhelming!

In response to the lack of recycling systems, some of us have started recycling programs in our schools—often as unpaid volunteers—and others are interested in starting programs. However, there are numerous deterrents, such as:

• No system-wide program offering supplies and sufficient educational materials for schools/teachers/parents to start and run their programs.
• Lack of staff time to effectively begin and coordinate programs.
• Custodians aren’t on board - complaining about the time it takes to move recycling separately from trash and the extra time isn’t built into their schedules.
• Students repeatedly witnessing items they’ve carefully separated for recycling ending up in trash dumpsters—largely because collection types and schedules aren’t working.

We need the NY Times to take a deep look at this issue and bring attention to our efforts. Please help us educate the public about what is going on and solutions for change. You could highlight:

• The lack of adherence to Local Law 19 and the NYC Department of Education Chancellor’s Regulations on Waste Management in Schools, which have not been updated since reorganization (attached). What are Chancellor Klein and the Division of School Facilities’ positions?
• If recycling is part of Local 891 and 32BJ contracts, why aren’t they doing their part?
• Exactly how much does it cost the City to not recycle in schools?
• Expose problems with collection schedules and mechanized vs. curbside collection.
• What do officials envision as a solution? What does our Group hope to accomplish?

Schools all over the U.S. are going green. At the very least, NYC schools should follow the law. But as arguably the greatest city in the world, certainly we should “be the change” and take the lead in demonstrating not only elementary environmental practices, but also exemplary. Currently, we fall terribly short of both.

Thank you for your attention to our passion for our city, our children, and our world. We hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Your Name

Dear Chancellor Klein,

As a member of the NYC community, I am outraged by the fact that only 9.5% of NYC school waste is recycled. How can such an alarming majority of NYC schools not be recycling? How can NYC's Local Law 19 and your regulation, the Regulation of the Chancellor on Waste Management, be ignored in schools, unchecked? Where is the accountability?

I know you must believe in recycling because there are recycling bins throughout the Tweed building. But then why have you disregarded recycling in schools? By breaking the law and being environmentally irresponsible, we are sending a strong message to our city's youth that it's okay to disregard the law and the environment. I expect that as Chancellor of NYC schools, you should be doing everything you can to ensure all NYC schools recycle.

The current Regulation, A-850, has never been upheld. I urge you to update A-850 to reflect the current reorganization of NYC schools and demonstrate a new committment to NYC school recycling.

If we are the greatest city in the world, as some say, then we should certainly take the lead in demonstrating exemplary environmental practices. Currently, we fall terribly short of the most elementary.

Please, please do your part.

Sincerely,
Your Name

I am a math teacher in my 6th year working for the DOE in NYC. I became aware of the recycling problem when I saw old dirty recycling bins used as garbage cans throughout the building and every DOE school building I've been in since that first day. So frustrated and bothered by this situation, in 2004, I started a school-wide recycling program at my school, I.S. 33, with a grant for $1,500 from Donors Choose to buy new bins, and garbage bins for each classroom, bottle containers for cafeteria, main office, and teachers lounge, collection bags, gloves, and wheeled containers. I acquired training materials from the Sanitation Department and conducted assemblies to the student body. I recruited student volunteers to collect the recyclables. We experienced many problems including, custodians throwing away recyclables, cafeteria staff not recycling properly, and the Department of Sanitation not coming to pick up the curbside recycling for weeks on end. I wrote the award submission for the Golden Apple Awards and received honorable mention, since ours was one out of 3 schools in the building recycling. Only a handful of schools participate in this contest since it's clear that very few schools have recycling programs. Because of lack of an infrastructure to support my efforts or any type of compensation for my tremendous efforts, I have little motivation to take on such a burdensome task in the future. I was inspired by the NY Post's article on the school recycling situation. The DOE has a big job to undertake in order to abide by your own regulation with regards to school recycling. But we are in the business of educating the future, yet we are mis-educating them, if the teaching of recycling isn't on the bill. I want to rally support for a massive recycling initiative in this city. I'm forming a group to take action and am asking for your support and assistance with this matter.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

As a member of the NYC community, I am outraged by the fact that only 9.5% of NYC school waste is recycled. How can such an alarming majority of NYC schools not be recycling? How can NYC's Local Law 19 and the Regulation of the Chancellor on Waste Management be ignored in schools, unchecked? Where is the accountability? By breaking the law and being environmentally irresponsible, we are sending a strong message to our city's youth that it's okay to disregard the law and the environment. I expect that as Mayor of NYC, you should be doing everything you can to ensure NYC schools recycle. You've taken a stand on other environmental issues, why not this one?

If we are the greatest city in the world, as some say, then we should certainly take the lead in demonstrating exemplary environmental practices. Currently, we fall terribly short of the most elementary.

Sincerely,
Your Name
 

All you back-to-schoolers who missed Jonathon Kozol's fast, which began last summer as Congress geared up to reauthorize NCLB, can still dip into the controversy with Why I am Fasting: A Note to My Friends. And why not follow-up with a first hand account this Thursday, March 26, 2008 at Pace? He'll catch us up on his latest book, Letters to a Young Teacher, which is all about you—that is, if you're actively cultivating your irreverance for NCLB too.

Kozol, a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood in Boston during the civil rights campaigns of the mid-60s and became a fourth grade teacher. Well-known for Amazing Grace, an expose on South Bronx schools, and then later for The Shame of the Nation, Kozol has a history of writing about the injustice in U.S. school systems. He also puts his mouth where his pen is, spending a lot of time in D.C. attempting to convince the Senate leadership to radically revise the punitive aspects of NCLB.

Pace University School of Education's sixth annual free lecture series, "The Current Status of Urban School Reform: What is Real?" is located at Pace's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts from 6-8 p.m.

Also, don't miss the last speaker of the series, Deborah Meier, educational reformer, writer and activist, on “What’s the Big Fuss All About? What’s at Stake in the Latest Round of Educational Reform? A View from the Bottom” on April 16.

If you can't make Kozol or Meier, you can download the talks, along with all of the other speaker's lectures.

Offers free top-notch lectures on a wide variety of humanities subjects (supporting NYS standards) to high school communities across New York State. Browse the list of lectures and enrich your students’ and colleagues' learning by inviting a renowned speaker into your school. The Council covers all costs associated with the program, including the Speaker’s honorarium and travel expenses, of successful applicants.

Through the Mollie Parnis Dress Up Your School Awards, Citizens Committee offers grants of $500 to $3,000 to support student led projects that beautify schools or neighborhoods immediately surrounding schools. Applications are accepted twice a year, usually in March and September.  

The Museum has created a learning experience that makes it fun for children to learn about Native Americans.  Children can go inside a tipi, touch the artifacts, play Indian games, and actively participate in learning about the life and culture of the American Indians.