Dao Crew Landscapes McAuliffe Charter School Entrance

Originally posted on May 28. Updated on May 29 with link to Charter School’s Facebook photos.

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A couple of weeks ago, sixth grade scholars in Karim Dao’s crew at the Christa McAuliffe School were looking for a way to make a difference at their charter school.

They came up with the idea to landscape the front of the school, now located on Newbury Street.

The 10-plus year old school moved to its new campus in the middle of the recent historic winter. So with the snow now gone, the crew of students decided they wanted to make the front of the school more beautiful.

“They researched plants that would do well in our conditions and drafted a proposal,” said Director of Community Development at the school Mara Gorden.

Wallace Montalvao, a father to one of the sixth grade scholars, who owns Boston Landscaping Design in Framingham, volunteered his expertise and time to the project.

“He helped the scholars to refine the project,” said Gorden.

The project was financed by individual donors. Lowe’s in Framingham gave the school a “generous discount” to purchase supplies, said Gorden.

The students began the labor of the project on Wednesday morning.

Dao’s crew, with the help of Montalvao, began digging and planting. They were helped by Victor Santos, an employee of Lowe’s who needed volunteer hours as a college student at St. Joseph in Maine.

Several of the students had worked in gardens at home or landscaping around their house, but for a few this was a first.

“I’ve never done this before said,” Ayke Boston, a sixth grader.

“I always do this stuff at home,” said Charles Vabulas, who added it was fun doing it at school.

Many of the students enjoyed the idea of spending time outside the classroom.

“I enjoyed being outside,” said sixth grader Ben Connaughton.

“The best part was ripping the plants out of the ground,” said Connaughton. Boston agreed.

Sixth grader Amanda Lampl said she enjoyed working with the volunteers, while her friend Elle Vermilya liked meeting new people.

The McAuliffe Charter School is a middle school for students in grads 6-7-8. It is also an “Expeditionary Learning” school, which means it has a hands-on curriculum that ask students to achieve through active learning & teamwork.

“We are crew not passengers at the school,” said Dao. As a crew we wanted to do something to make the school a better place.”

The students decided they want to create a beautiful entrance way to the school with a garden and a couple of picnic tables, said Dao.

They students planted perennial flowers and built, with the help of the adults, two picnic tables.

The students in doing their research considered tulips and daffodils, but ended up planting rhododendrons, azaleas, day lilies and salvia, said Montalvao.

“I would never have done this at my old school,” said Daniel Xu, a sixth grader from Ashland.

Dao said this crew of students will water the new garden daily, to start; and eventually other crews in the school will take on the gardening duties via rotation.