Courtyard cleanup to continue for seven years

Behind every dream, there is someone with a vision guiding it. The dream of restoring the school's biggest courtyard names science teacher Neal Jarvis as its visionary.

“The idea of the courtyard is to be a model arboretum that people in the community can observe once it's all set up," said Jarvis, who initiated plans for the courtyard.

Jarvis had been interested in the courtyard since he was a freshman at AHS in 1994. Back then, all science classes were required to work in the courtyard.

"When I was here as a student, the courtyard still had the greenhouse," said Jarvis, "Later, it was basically abandoned."

At the beginning of the year, Jarvis went to talk to landscaper Erika Salas at Merrifield Garden Center about his ideas for the courtyard.

"I told her what we were looking for, which was basically a science research area, that all classes could use," said Jarvis.

After two site visits, during which they discovered that the courtyard was in need of a lot of repair work, Salas developed a restoration plan.

"Initially, it was a salvage operation, but after the site visits, we decided to start afresh, since a lot of the plants in the courtyard were diseased, dying or planted in the wrong spot with the wrong kinds of plants," said Jarvis.

Once Jarvis had gotten the plans, he talked to Principal John Ponton, who approved plans and gave the go-ahead for the project.

The plans created by Salas for the courtyard will take seven years to complete, as it is broken up into stages to make it easier for students to work on it during spring of every school year. Anyone is welcome to view the plans, which are displayed on a planning board in Jarvis’ room.

This year, mainly the Science National Honor Society members have undertaken the task of working in the courtyard.

"All members are required to put in some time, about two hour sessions twice a year," said junior Imran MacMillan, vice-president of SSHS.
"I like how we're working out there to make it look better because it looked like crap before and everything was dead. Plus it can be fun when we move bushes."

Not everyone working in the courtyard is from SNHS however.

"I am in Mr. Jarvis' Geosystems class and he asked people to help out. It is a lot of fun,” said foreign exchange student Kate Strijova, “I met a lot of people I hadn't met before in school, and I made new friends, especially Mr. Jarvis. He is very fun and hardworking."

"When it's nice out and we're working hard, it feels like we're doing something good," said junior John Copenhaver, who works in the courtyard to fulfill community service hour requirements.

Phase one of the seven-year plan includes working on the spots in the courtyard that receives the most amount of sunlight, mainly clearing out all of the diseased and dead plants from the area and planting other flowers in their stead.

A spice garden has also been added for the benefit of the Culinary Arts program.

“Mr. Jarvis and I worked together to figure out what I wanted. We’ve planted various spices, tomatoes, lettuce and we have some edible flowers also,” said Culinary Arts teacher Christine Gloninger.

The addition of two cherry trees and one persimmon tree, along with more groundscape work, is planned for phase two next year.

"We'll be doing some landscaping in the fall, but we have to raise money so we won't start with other things until spring," said Jarvis.

To raise money for this year's work, SNHS held bake sales and sold ice cream after school, raising around $1200 of the total cost of $1500 for phase one. Ponton chipped in to cover the expenses for about half of the plants.

The whole project is estimated to cost $30 thousand.

"I personally think that this was the most expensive stage and most labor intensive stage," said Jarvis, who expects that the total cost will not be as high as projected.

The SNHS, along with culinary arts students, will be responsible for the upkeep of the courtyard in upcoming years.

“I’m hoping that my students will take care of the spice garden throughout the year, while I take care of it in the summer,” said Gloninger.

The members of SSHS plan to continue to sell ice cream and hold bake sales to pay for future costs. If all goes according to plan, the courtyard will be completed by 2015.