Palatine Dist. 15 exploring educational farm in Inverness

Nutritious, sustainable and locally grown food has long been a passion of Palatine Township Elementary District 15 Superintendent Scott Thompson.

Now the avid gardener wants to show his 12,000 students that what ends up on their dinner plate doesn’t originate from the “shelves at Jewel.”

With the school board’s blessing, Thompson is exploring starting an educational farm on 40 acres of district-owned land in Inverness.

“I think it’s really a cutting-edge kind of thing in education,” Thompson said. “We need to get kids aware of what is important for them to sustain a healthy life.”

In 1999, District 15 bought the unimproved lot on Ela Road from Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 for $3.2 million. Located just north of the Bonny Glen subdivision, it was one of the last available pieces of land in the small, affluent suburb.

With enrollment growing at the time, school officials thought there might be a need for a fifth junior high to serve the west side of the district since the other four are located on the east.

But enrollment has steadied and future projections show District 15’s population actually decreasing, eliminating any immediate for another school.

Thompson, who’ll come back to the board at a future date with a more comprehensive plan, proposes starting off small, perhaps with each student growing a pumpkin or gourd. They’d plant them in their school’s section of the farm next spring and then harvest in the fall.

“(We can) eventually teach them to eat nutritionally and to understand they can really make some good food out of things that are grown locally,” Thompson said.

Given limited financial resources, the superintendent said he doesn’t want to use district funds to finance the program. He’ll look at private sponsorships and donations.

Thompson also said Harper College and Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 have expressed interest in a possible joint venture, which could mean funding from them.

It’s too early to predict where the farm could lead, but one of Thompson’s ideas is that produce grown at the farm would help support Harper’s culinary program. Another is that students could run a farm stand, helping to subsidize the expenses.

“It sounds like a unique educational opportunity for kids,” board member Scott Herr said.