A new interlocal between Maple Valley and the Tahoma School District establishing a new curriculum is designed to address two issues at once.
It will allow the school district to create a curriculum to educate its its students about storm water pollution, all paid for by the city.
For the city, the agreement helps satisfy a requirement for a state program it participates in, according to City Manager David Johnston.
“Anytime there is an opportunity to use the Department of Ecology for education we always ask ‘can we work in partnership with the high school’?” Johnston said in a phone interview. “Cities do many things, but because we have a very enthusiastic school, one way we can get to the next generation is to be a patron of their educational process.”
“We’re just really really pleased to be partnering with the city of Maple Valley,” said Nancy Skerritt, assistant superintendent and director of teaching and learning for the Tahoma School District. “We believe partnerships are a way to leverage resources, to do outreach. We don’t want the school district to be a silo in the community, so, were really excited about the partnership.”
Under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase II permit, the city is required to develop and implement an education and outreach program. This program is designed to “reduce or eliminate behaviors and practices that cause or contribute to the adverse storm water impacts.”
Skerritt explained that district officials hope to have the curriculum finished by June and implemented sometime next year.
“We’ve been working for three years on aggressively putting into place core curriculum units to educate our students about the environment and the various issues,” Skerritt said. “And the number one issue is pollution in storm water run off.”
The city’s financial commitment to the curriculum will be reimbursed through an existing Washington State Department of Ecology Municipal Stormwater Capacity Grant.
As part of the interlocal agreement the school district will design a “Storm Water Thinking Curriculum,” which will include the demonstration of rain gardens and other green infrastructure improvements on the school campus and in the community.
The curriculum will be for third grade, fifth grade, seventh grade, ninth and tenth grade classrooms, as well as provide direct education workshops for the parents of the students.
“What we’re going to do is create a curriculum for both neighborhood workshops and student workshops for the adults in the district,” Skerritt said. “The kids who were involved in the green teams will have a role. But we’re going to invite families in and educate not just the children, but the adults also on little things we can on landscaping, with car washing, to how we deal with our pets.”
Additionally, the curriculum will include surveys to assess how the worship attendees are implementing the solutions, which will be published and presented to the City Council.
“We’ll be better citizens down the road,” Johnston said. “And we adults sometimes need to be educated by our children.”
