Alvin Independent School District

The romaine lettuce served in the salads at Alvin Elementary over the last few weeks couldn’t be any fresher.

The produce traveled about 100 yards from the Child Nutrition offices at Stapp Maxwell, where it was grown inside from seed pods in a hydroponic stand unit over the summer months.

While at a conference last year, Child Nutrition staff met with a vendor who pitched the idea of departments growing their own hydroponic produce.

With a longstanding commitment to providing fresh food to students and staff, it was an initiative worth digging into, Director Jennifer Basich said. Eventually, she would like to move the hydroponic tower systems into classrooms so students can have a hand in planting their own food.

“For me, it is to educate the kids about where food comes from and to encourage them to get excited and want to eat vegetables,” Basich said.

Romaine lettuce has a quick growth cycle, with about four weeks from planting to eating, which will make for a rewarding classroom experience, she said.

“We are experimenting with it first so we know what to tell the teachers if they come across any issues,” Basich said.

Which turned out to be a good thing to do. In the first few weeks of growing, Training and Marketing Coordinator Jorge Martinez said he noticed the plants weren’t quite maturing as fast as expected.

After asking around and doing some research, he found it was likely a water issue. With added nutrients, the department’s lettuce started thriving, growing larger than he had expected.

“It did take a little longer than we were expecting, but that’s why we wanted to test it out,” he said. “It’s all new for us, so we wanted to be sure we knew what we were doing and each step of the process.”

There’s no way growing produce in classrooms would ever make a dent in the district’s budget, but hopefully knowing that vegetables can be grown in an office or in their own classrooms will get kids excited to try more foods, Basich said.

And since students’ faces lit up in the lunch lines at Alvin Elementary as cafeteria managers informed everyone who chose a salad that the lettuce was grown by their coworkers, they’re likely on the right track.