BUDDING EDUCATION

Earlier this year, a common garden spider spun an intricate web that stretched across a section of the garden at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School.

“Most kids would just take a stick and knock down the web,” says Barbara Uskovich, who teaches thirdgrade science at the school. “Not one child touched her.”

Instead, they named her Beatrix and grew very protective of her, making sure she was well fed with other garden insects.

“They learn a deep respect for the earth,” Uskovich says.

That education begins as soon as they enter the school, as every grade has an active role in running the various gardens at least once a week.

It’s an outdoor classroom where students learn the fundamentals of environmental science in addition to learning were their food comes from and how to grow it themselves.

“Our students put it in. They weed it. They monitor it. They collect the seeds to plant next year. It’s all on them,” Uskovich says.

It’s been 20 years since the garden first bloomed at Stonewall Jackson, long before school gardens were a trend touted by the First Lady. It was the brainchild of Evelyn Painter, a second-grade teacher who thought children would benefit from more outdoor education. Her husband, Mark Painter, took the reigns in building and overseeing the garden in 1996. It began with a simple patch of beans. But over time, he developed the wildscape, where children can see how plants grow without much human intervention; a full vegetable garden with annual harvest; and a chicken coop that produces fresh eggs.

Scores of children learned to tend the gardens and appreciate nature under Mark Painter’s tutelage. For a while, he was a paid instructor whose classroom was outside, where children would learn to monitor soil temperatures, collect rainwater totals, and compost, among other life skills.

Then the recession yanked funding from all public schools, and Stonewall could no longer afford Mark Painter. He made plans to leave the school, but the parents whose children adored him wouldn’t hear of it. They created a garden steering committee and raised the money needed to keep “Mr. Painter” on staff until he retired in 2014. But when he departed, the garden was left in limbo.

“The garden slowly started to die,” Uskovich says. “Any direct knowledge of the garden had left.”

Uskovich and a group of Stonewall science teachers made a plan to take over garden maintenance, and went to work learning as much as they could about the 20,000-square-foot plot of land. The parents stepped up to help make sure the teachers had what they needed in terms of equipment and resources but were not allowed to fund another garden instructor like Mr. Painter.

“The district wanted it to be very clear that we were a fundraising group,” says Sarah Nicholson, spokeswoman for the garden committee. “We now focus on supporting the teachers.”

Dallas Independent School District spokesman Andre Riley points out the liability concerns when hiring someone to work with children; it’s more than just having funds. “Hiring an employee is more complicated than that,” he says.

The parents and the school found common ground this school year with Becky Gonzalez, a new teacher’s assistant on staff. In addition to her classroom duties, Gonzalez was paid through the committee to oversee the garden, which is necessary for it to thrive, some say.

“There’s so much to know, you really need one person dedicated to it,” Uskovich says.

Nicholson says they hope to keep Gonzalez on as garden coordinator, but it will depend on raising enough funds. Luckily, the community has always felt a strong sense of ownership over the garden, which is visible to all who pass from Matilda and Mockingbird.

“Our garden invites people in,” Uskovich says. “We want you to come.”

The passion from the school, parents and community will keep the garden blooming for another 20 years, because those involved see and hear the benefit direct from the children.

“It’s pretty impressive when a kindergartener can take you through the garden and tell you why there’s thermometers in the ground,” says Nicholson, whose three children have learned in the outdoor classroom.

Uskovich says her students come to life in the garden, relishing the chance to get out of the classroom and get their hands dirty. “To be in a building all day is not natural, especially for kids,” she says. “They get outside, and they become scientists.”

— Emily Charrier

Sk8r Boys

Long before kids could learn how to do an ollie or a kickflip from YouTube, old school East Dallas skaters Tracy Weller and Jimmy Coleman were tearing up the Dallas skate parks, and they haven’t quit yet.

“In our era you had to go down to the skate shop and buy some crappy VHS tape of a contest, and you’d wear that thing out in your parents’ VCR,” Coleman says.

“There’s a lot of technical stuff going on now,” Weller explains. “I don’t do a lot of flippy tricks.”

If they sound like old men griping about “kids these days,” it’s because, well, they kind of are. It’s appropriate that they’re both members of the DFW Old Man Skate Cartel, which is a meet-up group they claim is little more than “a Facebook page for selling T-shirts,” although we suspect it’s a little more than that because it’s nearly impossible to find information about the group online, and as a general rule, anything worth keeping a secret is worth knowing about.

To their credit, they’re incredibly badass for “old men.” They’re in tip-top physical shape, reflective of their active lifestyles, and covered in tattoos. Although neither went pro, they’ve been rubbing elbows with Dallas’ hottest rippers — such as Jeff Phillips (before he died in 1993), Craig Johnson and Dan Wilkes — for decades.

“There was a group of guys who were really good,” Coleman says. “They would all travel around and do contests. At the time, Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi were winning a lot of the contests, and Jeff [Phillips] was this force that could go out there and he could beat those guys.”

“With a different style of skateboarding,” Wellers adds, “because a lot of those guys were coming with more technical and tricky things.”

“Jeff was just pure power and style,” Coleman says. “Everything for him looked effortless. He’d come down and you could feel the whole ramp moving.”

Both men moved to Dallas in the late-1980s. When Weller first moved to Dallas from England, he remembers primarily skating on backyard mini-ramps and hanging out at a couple of skate parks in the area before the giant Jeff Phillips Skatepark opened in Northeast Dallas, which was the biggest skate park in the world at the time.

Most people who wanted to go pro back then moved to California, but Texas had it’s own scene. It wasn’t flashy, but it held its own, Coleman remembers.

“That’s why I came here, because of that,” Coleman explains. “People down here were known for their aggressive style of skating. It was a good, fun group of guys, so we were like, ‘Hey, we don’t have to move to California.’ ”

A lot has changed over the years, but one thing hasn’t: the community. Both men first got into skating because the culture gave them a place to belong as awkward, aimless teenagers, and although they joke about the non-importance of the Old Man Skate Cartel, they admit it gives them a way to stay connected with the tight-knit community.

“Someone will post where they’re going to be when,” Weller says. “Stuff like that.”

“We mostly just make fun of each other and post cat memes,” Coleman quips. Brittany Nunn