Common Ground High School is a charter school in New Haven, CT focusing on college preparation and environmental studies with a working farm on the school grounds. Below is an excerpt from a CPTV report by Nancy Cohen. 

"The Common Ground High School in New Haven will celebrate its ninth graduation next month. When they first enroll many students are below grade level in reading or math, but by the time they’re seniors almost all are accepted to college. The school’s focus on environmental studies helps draw students into learning.

"A rooster crowing isn’t exactly the sound you’d expect to hear in a high school in the city, but at the Common Ground High School the roosters, chickens and turkeys have something to teach.

"Biology teacher David Edgeworth says when the students first come to the school they don’t want anything to do with the farm animals or the school’s garden especially if it means getting their clothes dirty,

“By their second year, third year they’re knee deep in horse manure. They’re composting they’re working with animals. The transformation is just amazing.”

"But most don’t choose this school because of its organic garden or the emphasis on environmental studies or its location next to a state park. They come for something that’s rare in public education: small classes....

"Back out in the hen house 18 year old Cynthia Cardone is shoveling sawdust and points out a bird with a crazy headdress of black and white feathers.

“What’s that? Is that a chicken?”

“That’s a Polish Top Hat.”

"Cardone not only has learned to identify chicken breeds, like the Polish Top Hat, she has learned a lesson from taking care of the farm animals.

“Just to know they give us something and we give them something back.”

"That simple idea, that we’re interconnected, is at the heart of the school’s mission. But it’s wrapped around the bigger goal of helping students achieve."

Click here to read the full article online [1]

Photo credit: Nancy Cohen