West Side School celebrates agrarian roots at harvest festival

A dragon and a butterfly worked diligently on stepping stones
while nearby Harry Potter helped build a castle for lizards.
West Side Elementary School honored its agrarian roots at its
annual Harvest Festival celebration last Thursday, inviting
students to dress up in Halloween garb to work on nearly a dozen
projects in the great outdoors. Students worked in the garden,
crafted newspaper hats and were involved in numerous other
activities during the hour-long event.
“Harvest is a natural part of an agrarian society,” said school
principal Rhonda Bellmer. “We started this five years ago to
celebrate the students’ gardens and harvests.”
In the past West Side had banned costumes to avoid classroom
distractions around Halloween, but Bellmer said staff changed the
policy after students approached the school and promised they could
wear them without disrupting class. The school allows students to
wear costumes for the day as long as they followed guidelines
including no weapons, no blood, no full facemasks and no costumes
that restricted movement.
West Side garden coordinator Gretchen Specht said the school
plans 10 new projects every year for the Harvest Festival. “The
students just love it,” she said. “They really love our garden. It
makes our school special to them.”
Specht uses garden activities to teach students about science
and the cycles of life. “They learn that everything—bugs, birds,
plants—has a purpose in the garden. They learn how yummy vegetables
can be.”
Lisa Michaels was one of many parents to attend the festival and
she said the annual event is a favorite of her twin boys, Josh and
Ethan. “Normally they’re very sleepy and lazy when they get up,”
she said. “This morning they raced downstairs to put on their
costumes. It’s nice to have days to break out of the classroom and
learn outside.”