By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

PARK SLOPE — Urging the city to make more of its schools go green and get healthier, parent leaders spoke at an outdoor event supported by City Council Democrat candidate Brad Lander.

“We have involved every grade in moving forward toward a more sustainable planet and making healthier choices,� said Willa Hall, who, with Christine Baker, is one of the co-founders of the Green and Healthy Committee at P.S. 321 in Park Slope. They spoke a combination environmental event and Lander campaign rally outside the Old Stone House in Washington Park on Thursday.

They talked about working with the custodian on recycling improvements and convincing school officials to make health a priority, such as restricting the sale of chocolate milk to two days a week. “It’s loaded with high-fructose corn syrup!� they said.

Banning Styrofoam is a goal since it is not biodegradable and is made with styrene, which becomes a carcinogen when heated. Because of that danger, more than 100 cities have banned Styrofoam cafeteria trays. P.S. 154 in Windsor Terrace being the first city school to ban Styrofoam lunch trays. “Our city schools throw away four million Styrofoam trays every week,� said P.S. 154 PTA President Deb Capone. The PTA agreed to pay the cost for safe biodegradable trays. “The Department of Education promised to pay the base cost for the regular trays. Now they are saying that they won’t reimburse us.�

“Kids in city schools need to learn and practice good green behaviors at every level, in every classroom and every school,� said Deb Levine, joined by colleague Nicolas Bedell of the Brooklyn New School in Carroll Gardens. Students at the school, they noted, have learned to recycle properly and to eat healthier by being informed.

Working for the ‘Green Students of Tomorrow’

Parents and educators at the schools represented work “together to transform them into model green communities,� they said. Brooklyn New School has formed a partnership with a Red Hook community farm to serve its lettuce in the cafeteria and has created a rainwater catchment system. It received a $10,000 grant for food waste composting and has undertaken a building-wide recycling system effort. “We can and should be modeling healthy, sustainable choices for our kids and not polluting the Earth with Styrofoam and promoting obesity with junk food,� said Lander, one of five Democrats running in the 39th Council District. “We need today’s students to be the green citizens of tomorrow. Parents are leading the way and the Department of Education should follow.�

Another school represented at the event was P.S. 107 in Park Slope that has an edible garden in the Garden-to-School Café program, an after-school healthy cooking program and a partnership with a neighborhood farmers market.

Middle School 51 formed a partnership with the not-for-profit Old Stone House, a Revolutionary War historical site, establishing gardens that double as outdoor environmental classrooms. Other schools represented were P.S. 10, P.S. 295 and the new Brooklyn Urban Garden School.

These schools presented their joint proposal to the Education Department to place in practice the following policies: Ban Styrofoam in schools, dramatically improve recycling, rid junk foods from schools, and support innovative efforts, as the schools at the events are doing by choice now.

“These initiatives show why the city Department of Education needs to listen to parents,� said Lander. He has taken the state assembly to task for supporting renewed mayoral control of schools with only a few concessions to more parental involvement.

“If Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein will learn from what parents, students and educators are doing, they can make our schools better,� said Lander, a parent whose children attend P.S. 107. “They can make them places where our kids not only learn reading and math, but learn how to lead healthy lives and become stewards of the environment for generations to come.�

Lander was director of the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development where he worked on environmental and sustainability issues.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009 All materials posted on BrooklynEagle.com are protected by United States copyright law. Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net