New Tinley Park High School Teacher Brings School A Garden

TINLEY PARK, IL — In just 11 weeks on the job, newly hired Tinley Park High School speech-language pathologist Jessica Bogacz has already made a visible impact not only on her students but on the look of the school as well. Bogacz and the school have partnered with Ted's Greenhouse in Tinley Park on turning an open courtyard area into a small garden. Speech students of hers have been planning and planting the garden for a few weeks now.

The garden benefits both the students by targeting key academic and communication skills like semantics, vocabulary development, utilizing context clues to define unfamiliar words, and all of Tinley Park High School by beautifying the courtyard, a news release from District 228 states.

Ted's donated the plants and the students began planting mums right away. The plan is to continue this project through the spring and possibly expand it to include a wider scope — the school greenhouse — next year.

Bogacz is an occasional gardener, but does not consider herself an expert. She got the idea for the garden at the beginning of the school year when asking students about their favorite ways to learn and found out many of them like being outside and do better with a more hands-on approach.

“I didn’t create the program around my own knowledge and skills. I just through it was a great topic knowing their goals, that it needed to be a hands-on activity, and that the space was available,” Bogacz said, adding that the goal of the garden on the students' end is “to increase motivation while building on language skills.”

“This program will allow my students to strengthen comprehension and synchronization skills in a fun and interactive way,” she said.