By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The courtyard at Bowling Green High School is being transformed into a peaceful oasis in the middle of the classrooms and chaotic lives of students.
There in the courtyard is the soothing sound of a waterfall, where koi fish glide back and forth, beautiful flowers and smooth stonework.
But it hasn’t always been this way. A couple years ago, biology teacher Josh Iler looked at the courtyard and realized it could be so much more.
“The bushes were overgrown, covering the windows,” Iler said. One bush was blocking the door into the courtyard, making it difficult for students and staff to use the area.
“They would not come out here,” Iler said of the students.
But on Thursday, the courtyard was full of students sitting at the patio tables, taking a breather before their last couple classes of the year.
“Now you’ve got to get out here early to get a seat,” Iler said.
A couple years ago, Iler decided to use the courtyard as a classroom tool, and turn it into the oasis at the same time.
He asked North Branch Nursery to come up with a landscape design for the space. “Get me started and I’ll let the kids figure out the rest,” he said.
From there it grew … and grew.
The work started on the edges of the courtyard, with the old overgrown bushes being pulled out and replaced with neatly sculpted flower beds. Then recently, the work moved into the center, where the school’s victory bell used to sit before it was moved out to the football field.
“There was nothing but a cement slab,” in the center, Iler said.
So on a recent Saturday, Iler and his students were joined by Superintendent Francis Scruci to create a koi pond with waterfall.
“It got bigger and bigger,” he said, with the help of Select Stone, North Branch Nursery, Midwood and D&D Landscaping.
One of those students helping with the project is Jordan Arrington. Though he graduated on Sunday, Arrington came back to school Thursday to talk about the courtyard project.
“I took a lot of pride in this,” Arrington said.
“He’s the guy who wouldn’t let it stop,” Iler said of Arrington.
Arrington will be attending Bowling Green State University this fall, and is considering architectural landscaping as a possible major – not a path he even considered until working with Iler on the courtyard project.
The skills he learned have also earned him a job at home this summer. “I have to redo our yard,” Arrington said, smiling.
Even those students who didn’t have a role in the courtyard seem to have a new appreciation and respect for the site. The area is no longer being used as a place for kids to discard litter, Iler said.
Iler learned during the project that the courtyard had at one time been a memorial site for four high school students killed in a car accident in 1991, as well as to two other students in the Class of 1993 who died. That knowledge put a little extra pressure on Iler and his students to create a site worthy of their memories.
“You’re impacting families,” he said, talking about the car crash that forever changed families and affected the students. “It really brought together that class.”
The courtyard project will continue next year, with plans for the landscaping to wrap around to the other sides.
“We’ll keep introducing native species,” Iler said.
That’s all part of Iler’s plans to educate students at the same time as beautifying the courtyard. Students will research the plants being used, determine the best place for them to be planted, take care of them, and even identify the weeds that they pull up in the landscape beds.
“I want to get them to understand horticulture,” Iler said. “It’s not easy.”
The final lesson will be on patience – with the entire project taking five years.
“I want them to be patient, to see things and watch the progress,” he said.
While the office staff has agreed to feed the koi during the summer, Iler has identified some other issues that won’t be so easy to solve.
“Weeds are going to be one obstacle,” he said. “And obstacle No. 2 is watering.”
Iler added that the project has had the full support of school administration. High school principal Jeff Dever credited the biology teacher for tackling the project. “He did it on his own,” he said of Iler.
