Ecology w/o Mr. Leki

Hello Friends, 
If you were a corporate CEO, or a fast food worker, or a housecleaner, or professor, and were called in and told that your wages were being cut by 30%…. What would you think? It seems to me that this announcement is really an invitation for you to leave, to retire, to quit.
That is what is happening at Waters and with the ecology program and garden. The LSC likes them both, but wants me, Mr. Leki, out. Maybe they think I am too old. Or maybe they think I cost too much. Maybe they want someone new, that doesn’t know the history of the people who made the gardens. Maybe they want someone that is more afraid to speak out about issues in the garden, neighborhood and city. Someone that would be easier to control and deal with. Maybe they think they could buy someone to teach something called ecology, that, ironically, has no attachment to the school and community.  That is what the LSC is proposing: take a 30% defund or hit the road. 

I am working with a group of parents to present some counter-proposals to the LSC that could possibly resolve this crisis.
In the meantime,  

Join us on Saturday, July 9 for a
Garden /Ecology Celebration
10-12:00 Bring food and musical instruments.
We will work, and talk and eat and enjoy the day.

LSC has been invited to hear your voices
Mr. Leki
 

Here's what some of our community say:
 
To Whom It May Concern:
 
I write, in the highest possible terms, to retain Pete Leki as the head of ecology at Waters Elementary.   It is  doubtless that the program will likely not continue to thrive under hands other than Mr. Leki's.
 
Any student that has belted out a song on the bus to Sauganash, any parent that has chaperoned an ecology field trip, knows first-hand that Mr. Leki brings unparalleled expertise in education, community-building and passion for all things Nature.
 
I ask you to ensure that Mr. Leki will continue as the leader of ecology at Waters, so that future environments, whether inside the classroom or outside in the fields, can benefit from his unique knowledge and leadership.
 
Yours,
George Cederquist,
Waters Elementary Parent.

Water's garden and ecology program is probably one of the most important and necessary components of the Lincoln Square community. Not only does it provide the opportunity for the students of Waters to learn about plants, gardening and natural stewardship but it also provides the community with a natural sanctuary that gives peace and tranquility. As the world is reminded over and over again by the real and immediate effects of Climate Change it seems vital to teach students the values of natural stewardship. It is also vital to have a space where animals and people and plants can congregate in harmony. I hope to continue to bring my young son to the garden so he can run around and discover all of the different plants and to see how food grows. Please reconsider defunding the ecology program.
 
Thank you
David Grant a community member

To Whom it May Concern -

I’m writing in support of full funding for the Waters ecology program. I bought a home about a block from Waters in 2019 and was first introduced to the garden then. I spent many summer nights taking walks among the plants, but it wasn’t until Summer 2021 that I became more involved. Since the pandemic struck, I had been a member of Lincoln Square’s mutual aid group. Last spring, we partnered with Mr. Leki and the Waters Garden to grow food for our neighbors who were facing food insecurity. Because of the efforts of the students, Mr. Leki, and others, we were able to make weekly deliveries of fresh greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and more to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. In the process, members of the mutual aid group became garden volunteers—helping to prep beds for student use and to care for the veggies they had planted during the previous semester. As someone who plans to send my child to Waters in a few short years, I am acutely aware of how this kind of interconnectedness builds healthy, thriving communities and, in turn, improves the education of our children. When I purchased my home, I heard repeatedly from friends and neighbors who said things like “What a great location! You’re so lucky to be in the Waters district!” This kind of enthusiasm for a local school does not come without hard work—hard work like the kind Mr. Leki puts in every day for this school and these students. Please consider doing what you can to fully fund Waters’ unique and vital ecology program.

Warmly,
Taylor Fenderbosch 

A Principal Visits

Dear Waters Community,

The other morning I was at the garden helping one of the waterers wrangle the long garden hose. I saw a tall man walking and stopping on the sidewalk along the perimeter of the garden. He stopped, read the signs, looked in, craning his neck. Finally, I asked if he had any questions about the garden. He introduced himself as the new Principal of another nearby CPS school. He said that his school community wanted to start a garden and they told him: “You have to see Waters School Gardens”. So, that’s what he was doing. But he told me that he had no idea that our garden was so big, so rich, and so incredibly beautiful. I gave him a tour and told him some of the history of the garden: its small, heroic beginnings, its historic location on the bed of the old Chicago River, anchored by our ancient oaks, and the energy and creativity of our struggling community that converted 1.2 acres of asphalt to garden by hand!
One of the last things he said was something about how the mixture of garden boxes filled with flowers and vegetables, with the exuberant growth of native plants was just breathtaking.
That was an angel’s message at a time when the worth of the garden is being challenged by some in the school community.

Do you have a message that you would like to share, to help save the garden and ecology program? Here are excerpt from some messages I have received:


“I am so sorry to read this… My heart crumbles. Your ecology program was the thing that made us choose Waters and neighborhood all the way from Venezuela.” Alicia M. parent


“… we consider the school and gardens a community treasure, a wonder held in common. Our kids played on the playgrounds (several iterations). We shared in the raspberries, we hear the Scouts and neighbours at the fire pit singing songs, we play on the turf field on weekends, we marvel at the raised bed gardens and the variety of growing things, we are in awe at the centuries-old majestic trees in the South gardens.”  Eric C. neighbor and parent


 “For us the ecology program has been the stand-out experience at Waters, and not being able to fully participate in that was one of our great sadnesses during the 18 months of remote learning. However, the remote classes with Mr Leki were a highlight of remote learning, and proved to be the spark for many family outings, as Ewan and I walked the streets of the neighborhood trying to identify the tree species that he had learned about in class, or went to the Waters garden to draw plants and leaves. Upon return to in-person learning Ewan has loved being part of the Mighty Acorns and we are excited for him to continue with that next year. Growing up in the city with so many outdoor spaces covered in concrete or plastic, this early exposure to nature is vital for our kids. Childhood nature exposure is associated with increased self-esteem, and better quality of life as children, along with improved mental health in adulthood.” Jeremy A, parent and neighbor


“I’m writing because I was alarmed to hear that the Waters School Ecology Program budget is being cut by 30%. I’m a neighbor of Waters and a community development professional. Although I don’t have children, I moved to the neighborhood twelve years ago because of the school and the gardens. I work in many cities across the country, helping communities to develop sustainably and equitably. I’m often in touch with school districts and principals. I can tell you that the Waters School Ecology Program is a gem and would be the envy of many other cities. It provides the sort of experience that kids will identify later as their favorite part of school, one that supported them academically and personally. For the neighborhood, the gardens function as a community hub, a place that adds immeasurably to quality of life. The numbers of families who benefit from the gardens far exceed those who volunteer or whose kids attend Waters.” Ellen S. neighbor 


Please join us:
Save the Garden! Save Ecology! Celebrate the Garden Community
Saturday, July 9, 10:00 until Noon

Bring food, drinks and musical instruments, soccer balls, volley balls and frisbees.
If you are not able to join us, Please send us a message of support that we will share with the LSC and the Principal.

Thank You,
Mr. Leki

Garden Elves and Parent / Teachers

Dear Waters Friends, 

In order to cut funding for the ecology program, an analysis was done of my time allocation, based on my google calendar. It turned out that I only work 45% of a full time position! This came as a shock to me. Even tho I wasn’t consulted on the process, it seems to me I work all day, after school, weekends and summertime. It comes with the demands of the program that we have created over the past 25 years. 
In fact, when I corrected the time allocation chart for the LSC, it turns out I work 150% of a full time job. How is that possible?

Garden Elves! How do I keep the garden in good order and ready for use by our students? How do we maintain soil fertility, keep the beds in good order, weed and prune, compost waste, keep the tools in order, repair the wheelbarrows and hoses and everything else? How is it possible to keep the plants alive and thriving during the blazing summer so that students can partake of luscious veggies and fruit in the Fall? Garden Elves! Parents, neighbors, former LSC members, and teachers who volunteer, for free, every day, and gather en masse on our workdays to do their magic.  We have 400+ people on the garden email list, and probably 50 active volunteers. These people magnify my efforts, they vastly multiply my capacity. Our system is one that is a model for gardens around the city. They are paid only in friendship, appreciation, music and food.

Parent / Teachers
We had 48 off site field trips last year. How is this possible?? 250+ parents volunteered to be co-leaders, parent / teachers, exploring and learning with our children, allowing us to work in groups of 7-8, instead of 30. During pre-trip briefings, and extra workshops, parents are invited to learn about the pedagogy involved in our field outings, the science content of our trip, and how to respond to student work. Parents learn the ecology lessons, and with their groups, experience the surprises of wild nature. We write, we sing, we draw, we pursue our curiosity. On ecology field trips, we are building a learning community that continues after school, after Waters and throughout life. 

One teacher told me that her class’s garden experiences changed their whole day, inspired and relaxed her students, and filled them with joy and happiness. A sixth grade teacher, walking with her class to River Park to net benthic organisms and conduct chemical tests, and sketch wild nature, told me “This is what I signed up for when I decided to be a teacher. Not to drill students for tests.”

Our ecology program and garden are unique and powerful places for students to engage Life. Please help us to restore  funding and to keep the programs intact and protected.
Please join us on Saturday, July 9 from 10:00 to 12:00 to let the LSC know what you think. 

Thanks, 
Mr Leki

Ecology Program In Jeopardy

As of today, the Ecology Program  at Waters is going to be defunded by 30%. Some people in the LSC and school community have suggested that the garden is underutilized, a waste of space, and that what happens in the garden is a mystery. They say the ecology program is too expensive.

So we want to invite the LSC and our entire community to a Save the Garden, Save Ecology,  Celebrate the Garden Community, on Saturday, July 9, 2022 from 10 until noon. 

Come and share your experiences with the LSC and our Principal. Tell them what the garden has meant for you and your family. 

The garden didn’t appear spontaneously, and is not maintained by luck. Decades of work by generations of Waters students and families have created one of the largest, most beautiful, and ecologically important gardens in the city. The garden needs funding and protection.

The ecology program is unique to the entire city. It doesn’t fit into any of the boxes created by the system. It needs to be treasured and defended.

Join us on July 9 to share your stories, and bring some food to share. We will have a grill going to make quesadillas and hot dogs. We will be making fresh gooseberry lemonade. We will have a homemade pico de gallo contest. The winner gets a frozen bag of garden pumpkin! 

Bring your musical instruments and songs. Help us to save the garden and the ecology program. 
If you cannot be there, but wish to support this effort to save the ecology program, please send us a written letter of support. We will compile them and give them to the LSC and Principal.

Mr. Leki

July 2nd Garden Gathering

Dear Friends, 
Join us this Saturday, July 2, 9-12, for garden stewardship.
I would like to spend time:
in the Journeys and Refuge garden, weeding, watering and tying up berries and grapes.
Also, we can start harvesting gooseberries and currants to make cool summer drinks for:  Celebrate the Garden, Celebrate Ecology Day next Saturday, July 9. (Separate email headed your way soon)
Also, cleaning up the pile of branches by the Fire pit,
Weeding north of the cold frames
Weeding Northern Avens and Helleborine orchids wherever you see them
Water the Nature Play Space and remove green plastic screening.

Hurray for the work of the Waters Waterers (WahWahs). The gardens look fabulous.  We had a funny entanglement with Jen yesterday. No, not with Jen, but with the hose. The main garden hose is very long because we need to reach the parkway plantings along Sunnyside. Poor Jen was dragging a spaghetti pile of hoses and getting stuck all the time. Here are two strategies we can consider for hose wrangling:
because each section of hose has a valve at the end, we can keep the last two sections coiled up, just inside the Sunnyside fence and attach it only when watering the parkways, and, or, when you have the hose extended to its maximum length, and are finished watering, walk with the end of the hose all the way back to the cedar shed. So, now you have a long straight hose going out, and the other returning. Grasp the hose at your feet (that is closest to the water spigot, and begin coiling in a hula-hoop sized circle, pulling and coiling, pulling and coiling until the whole hose is neatly coiled, with the working end on top waiting for its next use. It took me about 3-4 minutes to do this. We have several expert wranglers who can show you the ropes. Beth, for example.
The prairie is abloom with pink wild roses, yellow heliopsis, Monarda, and sky blue spiderwort. Check it out, breathe deep.

Pete

Raspberry patch threatened

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Unless persuaded otherwise, contractors will come to Waters tomorrow to tear out the raspberries that grow along the west side of the (old) Annex. I don’t know why they are doing this, or who ordered it. I have emailed the Principal but received no response. I bumped into the contractors by accident.
This patch of sweetness was planted by students 10+ years ago, and each year since then kids, families, staff, and visitors have stopped short and paused to enjoy fresh ripe berries. Below the berries grows chamomile, garlic, arugula, sedum (from seeds that dropped off the green roof) New England Asters, milkweed, and more. It has been trellised, weeded, pruned, and fertilized by our school community. It is a well-tended and much loved use of otherwise forgotten space. It is watered using the 500 gallon cistern nearby.
Why is this happening? It is from these small acts: the act of creating and tending a garden, or the act of abruptly destroying it. These are the acts that create our future, our world. 
They say they will pour cement.
I will be there at 8:00 tomorrow morning to ask them to stop. Please join me if you can.
Mr. Leki

Dear Gardening Friends

Dear Gardening Friends,
Saturday, 9-noon is Garden Day at Waters.
But this Saturday, June 18, is the 47th Ward Eco-Fest at Welles Park, 10:00 until 2:00 . Waters Garden and Riverbank Neighbors will be “tabling”, engaging our community about our work and our history.  And at 10:40 I will be leading a Sing-a-long under the Gazebo, singing Waters Ecology songs with our school students, parents and community. Please join us for this great event.
Thank you,
Pete

A note from Arunas:

If you’re traveling this summer and want to make sure your garden gets watered while you are away, you have two options: 
1. You can make friends with your neighboring gardeners and ask one of them to water your plot while you're away. 
2. You can plant a blue flag from the shed in your plot and one of the other gardeners or Waters Waterers will water it. The blue flags are in the shed in a bucket to the left of the door. There are also red flags if you do not want anyone to water your plot (some people are particular about when and how they water).

If you are at the garden and notice the blue barrels are getting low on water and you have a few minutes to spare, please fill them up from the hose. You don’t even have to fill them up all the way, but it’ll make it easier on everyone if we all try to keep the water barrels full. If you don’t know how to operate the spigot for the hose or where it is, we’ll be happy to show you.

Try to keep the land around your plot tidy and weeded. If you’re trying to keep the Creeping Charlie at bay and it’s already gone to seed, please dispose of those weeds in the green Dumpster on the north end of the parking lot. Do not dispose of the Creeping Charlie in the compost bins. There was also a recent delivery of wood chips, so if you do weed around your plot you can follow that up with a wheelbarrow or two of wood chips to slow future weed growth.

Garlic scapes (the curly tops on hardback varieties of garlic) are starting to appear in many plots around the garden. These are edible and delicious. You can use them pretty much as you use garlic, but the taste will be a little lighter and springy. They’re great in pestos or sautéed in recipes where you’d usually use garlic. Here’s one of my favorite garlic scape recipes.

Arunas

Tree Champions and Waters Eco-fest Sing Along

In this post:
Tree Olympics Results47th Ward 
EcoFest with Waters School Sing Along

Tree Olympics Results

The “Tree ID Olympics” were held on Monday, June 13, and all three 1st Grade classes achieved champion status, defined as correctly answering at least 45 out of 50 tree questions correctly. Results:

Room 210 49.5/50

Room 208 47.5/50

Room 211 46.17/50

Terrific work First Grade. Oh the Trees!

47th Ward EcoFest with Waters School Sing-Along

Waters’ regular Garden Day will be suspended this Saturday to allow families to visit the 47th Ward Eco-Fest at Welles Park, 10:00 – 2:00 (See flyer below). Waters Garden and Riverbank Neighbors will be sharing information at tables there. At 10:40 I will be leading Waters School students and families in singing some of our ecology songs : Oh! The Trees, Viva La Pradera, Hoe Come the Water’s Brown, and more. All Waters students, siblings and families are welcome to join me under the Gazebo.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gZOt4R8Dyzyz4aOkeQsxBT67hA5g0jP0/view?usp=sharing

Stay Cool, 

Mr. Leki

Last Days!

Dear ecology friends,
The last days of the 21-22 school year!
Tomorrow morning, Monday, June 13, at 8:45, 6th Grade class Room 311 will visit the garden to haul wood chips and learn about organic gardening. Volunteers are welcomed to join us!

Starting at 11:45, 1st Grade Room 210, will participate in the Tree ID Olympics, in which teams within each class field 50 questions about the trees of our school grounds. If the class is able to correctly answer at least 45 questions correctly, they will have achieved the title of Tree Champions. This is an extraordinary process to watch: the students conferring in whispered, sometimes intense discussions, before finding consensus and offering the answer. Many minds are greater than their simple sum. Room parents are welcome to attend and witness and cheer on our students.
Room 208 at 12:30
Room 211  at 1:15.

3rd grade planted 40 -50 tomato plants that they raised from seed. These fruits will ripen in the summer and be available to students when they return in Fall. 3rd grade also feasted on the lush growth of romaine lettuce, cleaned, spun and laced with ranch dressing.

For staff and families who are fans of kale,our bed of kale is lush and ready for harvest. Please stop by after school, or let me know if you would like to have a bunch.

Garden days are now 9:00 until Noon on Saturdays, thru the Summer. Families are welcome to join us to work and play and learn and eat!

Mr. Leki

Quick Reminder: Lovely Day for the Garden

Dear gardening Friends, 
This is the last Garden day of this school year!  (Gatherings will continue through summer)  Vegetables are coming into stride. Students have been devouring the lettuce and becoming fans of fresh produce. About 50-60 tomato plants, grown from seed in school have been planted, as well as eggplant, peppers, basil, cukes, zukes, and all kind of flowers.
So there is much garden work to do, many flowers to view, and a chance to enjoy each others company.
Join us, 9-12,
Mr. Leki