[Sdpg] School district says no to fruit trees San Diegio

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

School district says no to fruit trees


Visiting ecology group plants shade instead

By Maureen Magee
STAFF WRITER
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050223/news_7m23trees1.html
February 23, 2005



EARNIE GRAFTON / Union-Tribune
School students Blanca Torres, Maria Ugarte and Alma Miranda (from left) in 
planting a tree at the school yesterday.
	
Johnny Appleseed apparently can't be trusted in San Diego.

A caravan of earth-loving ecology educators launched a statewide fruit 
tree-planting tour at Clark Middle School in City Heights yesterday.

Traveling in 30-year-old school buses that have been hand-painted and run 
on vegetable oil, the environmentalists will visit 20 cities and plant 
1,000 fruit trees in hopes of teaching urban students about sustainable 
ecology and the benefits of eating locally grown food.

But San Diego students will get shade instead of fruit.

	
	Advertisement	
	
The San Diego Unified School District is the only district on the tour to 
put the kibosh on the fruit trees. Administrators worried students would 
use the peaches, guavas and plums as weapons instead of food.

"Fruit trees create more of a mess, and fruit does tend to be used as a 
projectile with students," said district maintenance and operations 
supervisor Mark Everts. "This is precautionary. We've never had fruit trees 
planted at a school."

Although fruitless, the show went on yesterday. Musicians beat on African 
drums and loose-limbed dancers performed for students to demonstrate how 
various cultures honor the earth and its bounty.

Then students planted flowering jacaranda trees, New Zealand Christmas 
trees and other nonthreatening, nonfruit-bearing trees.

Organizers didn't let the setback – or the rainy weather – dampen their 
upbeat message. But the irony was not lost, either.

"The idea of seeing fruit as something to throw is indicative of . . . a 
problem," said Michael Flynn, education director for the nonprofit Common 
Vision.

The district frowns on fruit trees not only for the potential for violence 
but because of the bugs and mess that can accompany them. The district 
landscaping budget has been severely cut in the past two years and 
gardeners are overworked as it is.

Common Vision organizers said the program is designed to attract beneficial 
bugs like ladybugs and bees. And they said fruit trees are not that hard to 
maintain.

Students still took pride in sprucing up their campus.

"I felt a little sad we couldn't have fruit," said seventh-grader Teresita 
Zuniga, 12. "But we still got a lot of kids together to plant. And we try 
to spread peace."

Common Vision  www.commonvision.org/  will plant fruit trees on 45 campuses 
in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose and elsewhere in hopes that urban 
students will understand that eating locally grown food benefits farmers 
and the earth.

There is something about eating an apple grown here, Flynn said, as opposed 
to eating an apple grown in Chile that was shipped thousands of miles on 
planes that pollute the environment.

"It's too bad because a lot of kids in San Diego who come from Guatemala 
and Central America, where coffee and bananas have completely eliminated 
land for indigenous farmers," he said. "This is a very relevant lesson here."

Today, the buses will head to New City Charter School in downtown Long 
Beach. They will also plant 75 fruit trees at two schools in South Central 
Los Angeles.

Ted Hamory, co-director of New City Charter School, chuckled at San Diego's 
policy. For five years, New City, which serves mostly poor and minority 
students, has been growing fruit and vegetables without incident. They eat 
some of the harvest and sell some at their own farmers market.

"It's been great for everyone – the kids and the community," he said. 
"Students get a sense of ownership about the campus and they have respect 
for the environment."

Organizers, administrators and students were hopeful San Diego Unified 
would change its policy. They plan to plant a fig tree in a wooden box as a 
symbol of their goal.

"We don't need to focus on problems, we need to focus on solutions to the 
problems that hold us back as a people and as a culture," said Blair 
Phillips, the director and founder of Common Vision.

Clark's vice principal, Michael George, also vowed to help students 
accomplish their goal. He is working to help establish a campus vegetable 
garden for students.

"I agree with what these people are doing," George said. "But we are also 
going to follow district policy."

Clark is a big campus in a tough part of town where gang violence is 
prevalent. George said violence killed five students and former students 
last year.

A student club that works to stop violence helped organize the 
tree-planting effort.

"The kids planting trees on campus – that's very important," he said. "It's 
not what we plant, it's why we plant."

  Maureen Magee: (619) 293-1369; maureen.magee at uniontrib.com

  »Next Story»