intheknow
BANTA SCHOOL embraces community’s agriculture tradition By PAWAN NAIDU
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griculture has always been a big part of the Banta Elementary School curriculum and celebrated within and outside the classroom. The more than 100-yearold school has served as a school for local farmers and field workers, and it still does today. Banta Unified School District operates a K-8 school, Banta Elementary School, and sponsors two K-8 charter schools within the River Islands community. Banta School offers Banta Agricultural Science Charter School as an
option for the 300 to 350 students. Banta’s students, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, now study math, science, reading and writing from an agricultural perspective. Superintendent Rechelle Pearlman says Banta’s reputation has always been “a small country school with strong community support.” “There is a community feeling to Banta, you just feel like you are a part of something more than just yourself. I think you see that with the teaching staff, with the kids, it’s kind of cliché to say, it feels like a big family”, she said.
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Over the years, the school has held agriculturally focused events such as Hay Day and Ag Day to support its community roots. Being in rural Tracy, she said the overall feeling of Banta is that you are in a different place. “I think that for a kid it’s pretty cool,” said Pearlman. “You’re out playing kickball and the farmer in the field next door is planting tomatoes and you get to watch the cycles of the harvest. You get to see that happening right across from your playground.” The goal is to also expose students to alternative careers that involve ag-
OC TOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
9/29/2021 10:58:52 AM
