Brandon Kyle Jeter

Partial Transcript: Almost exactly three years ago this whole area in the back of the school, there were a bunch of old, dilapidated portable buildings. And those old classrooms were being razed to the ground, and it just so happened that the principal was standing at the balcony, watching this happen; it was close to my classroom and as I recall, I walked up to him and just stood there for a minute, we casually watched them destroy the portables Almost on a whim I asked him if maybe some of this newly available land could be set aside for science purposes. He said he’d consider it and I thought, he’s not really going to get back to me on this and to my surprise, not only did he get back to me a couple of days later, but he set aside 10,000 square feet. When I suggested it, I was thinking one little garden bed or something along those lines. Now I’ve got 10,000 square feet to play with. I went home and started planning stuff out and the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I started getting student input on ideas. We were designing a little bit of everything. I mean, we had a park, and we had raised beds, and we had hydroponics. And I started getting crazy and thinking of an observatory and all kinds of stuff that you could do. We got really excited about it. Then somewhere in that process of design, it really hit me that this had to be, that this needs to go back to the basics, the beginning of this school and the name of this school. This school's namesake is Marjory Stoneman Douglas. And I thought, oh my gosh, this has to be at its heart always an environmental project. That has to be the basis. That’s our foundation. That is why we named it Marjory’s Garden so the name is always there. We always use that as our guide, as our north star.

From that point on, at first, we struggled, and we just had to learn as we go. We didn't have irrigation out here. It’s all those kind of things. But the challenge is what's fun. It's what gets the students excited about learning and forcing them to work hard and work with their hands and build stuff. Personally, my background is always having student-centered projects, student-led projects, have them at the heart of things. Because if you can get them connected, once you've got them, you've them. They're going to want to learn. You don't have to force them at that point. And so that was the heart of the project. And along the way, you know, again, we had to learn things as we went along, and it was really fun.

Now, I remember last year on February 10th, we were out here, and we had a tremendous day, and I felt like things were going as well as they could go. And I was so happy with this project. When we came back after the shooting, I had this other epiphany, this other moment, of ‘you know what”, the garden’s going to be something more now, it going to be even more than what It was. I was so thrilled with it, so happy, when I realized as a place of healing, as a place for mental health, things like that. It was always a part of it but now it was going to the front of the line. We're going to need this this little oasis on campus. We're going to need a place that's green. We need this green space for kids to come to.

Now at the same time that we're realizing this, we're starting to get offers of outside help that we've never gotten before. The first big company that came in was Brightview Landscaping; they came in and they helped so much; they brought a bunch of.. It was such a fun day for the kids, and this was in April so, to us, it's still fresh. Still the scar is wide open. It was so hard but I just thought that day was a thing of beauty because the kids were out here and then for that short little time all of us just had our mind off of everything that had just dominated every waking thought that we had.

Partial Transcript: I think that almost on a week-by-week basis the garden’s purpose has grown in that respect. More and more people are using this as a place to come to and relax and be in nature, getting a little fresh air and sunshine. When the kids volunteer on Saturdays… To me, growing up, I was always had my hands dirty, I was always building things with my friends and being outside. It was a collaborative process; it’s being around other people. Not digitally, not online playing video games but being with them and working on things and getting your hands -, and learning how to build things and how to grow things. I think that is one of the most mentally healthy things all of us can do because you see the fruits of your labor. You can just come out here and sit in the swing amid watch the butterflies and whatever you want to do. It is just a healthy thing. Like I said people can come out here; our media center specialist ordered a little library for out here. Kids can literally get a book and read under a tree and just enjoy nature. So many different teachers have helped out, and the community – Loew’s and Sunshine Electric; all these different companies have come in, but I really also wanted to always be an educational thing as well. So when people are here, we want to learn from them.

We've started having, you know, guest speakers come out. Like we had our first, what we call now Marjory's Day, which was the day before her birthday. And we got to hear from people that go out and photograph in the Everglades and they were teaching all of us things about the Everglades that we didn't know.
And that was the purpose of this area right here. The outdoor classroom was one of the original things we planned. I was so excited about it because I wanted that little stage in a place where an entire class could come out. And we've seen that this year for the first time where entire classes come out. I saw an English teacher recently out here in his class. They were out here reading poetry; I believe is what they were doing. Up on the stage is just a nice natural setting and it is a fun place to go.

We have it open on one day a week for lunches and kids come out; that’s where I see an incredible growth in this where you have 50 or 60 kids coming out at lunch and just enjoying it. They really do a nice job of taking care of it. They don’t litter, they don’t write on it; They are doing a. nice job of understanding that this is a special place. We want it to remain a special place, I hope. My son starts here next year, and I hope that his class and every class from now will enjoy this green space that we have, and they’ll learn from it and it will help them get through their time here.