HOUSTON – Students at Houston Independent School District are gaining valuable life skills through the innovative DYAD Program.
Under the DYAD Specialty Classes, NES and NES-A students in grades three through eight have the opportunity to explore various categories such as fitness, music, fine arts, 21st-century media and technology, hands-on science, and gardening.
At Fleming Middle School, the campus that KPRC 2 has been embedded in throughout the school year, students are learning about music and gardening.
“This is Fleming Middle School DYADS gardening program and we basically teach horticulture,” said agriculture consultant and DYAD teacher Rafash Brew.
Now, he spends his time teaching students how to grow food for their community.
Fleming Middle School is located in Houston’s 5th Ward, which the United States Department of Agriculture calls a food desert.
A food desert are neighborhoods where it’s typically difficult to find affordable or good-quality fruits or vegetables.
“We hope that the kids will go home and share this information with their parents. Their parents will get into gardening with them, and they could grow a garden salad in a container even if they live in an apartment. That’s our objective,” Brew said.
For the students at Fleming, learning how to garden could not only save their lives but also help them produce solutions to their community’s current challenges.
“Hopefully, we can make more fruits and vegetables available to people who live in a food desert,” Brew said.
The program is a first of its kind for Fleming Middle School.
The DYAD Program brings in instructors from the community who are passionate about their respective fields. Whether it’s chefs teaching cooking or experienced individuals sharing their gardening expertise, this program connects students with mentors who genuinely want to give back to the community.
“They’re actually community members. The DYAD program locates people who have an interest in certain areas. For example, if you’re a chef and you want to come teach cooking, then they pay you to come be a consultant, a DYAD consultant, and do cooking,” said assistant principal Charlotte Davis. “Most of the people live in this community come because they want to give back to the community.”
The gardening instructor, Brew, is a Southern University graduate, who has spent most of his life giving back to his community. He worked at Louisana State University in the agriculture department for more than 25 years. After retiring, he moved to Houston and started working with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, the Houston Zoo and Prairie View A&M University.
“The DYAD program is a really good program to help the scholars,” Brew said. “We hope that this will stay with them for life.”
Take a look at the stories we’ve covered during our Focus on Fleming initiative:
Fleming Middle School Principal, Devin Adams, named Principal of the Month for HISD
‘I don’t like that 10-minute timer’: Students express concerns with NES Model