Dorri Partain
Managing Editor

From a greenhouse filled with lush tropical plants and blooming flowers to fresh turkey eggs mixed into cookie dough, East High School agriculture students are enjoying the “fruits of their labors”.

This urban high school at 1924 Van Brunt Boulevard has seen a resurgence of an agriculture (AG) program first started in the 1980’s when Kansas City Public Schools introduced a magnet school program that aimed to desegregate the district’s elementary, middle and high schools with specific- focused curriculums. As this program was phased out, East High was left with greenhouse and animal paddocks that largely went unused until East High Math instructor Andrew Killen restarted the program in 2017.

Along with Killen, this program includes Sheryl Palmieri, an instructor with 25 years of experience including FFA (Future Farmers of America) and educator Aaron Kick. Palmieri joined East’s program in 2024 and Kick in 2025; along with class instruction, they also play an integral role in plant production and animal care.

This school year 120 students enrolled in one or more AG classes: AG Science 1 and 2, Food Science, Floraculture, Landscaping, and Animal Science. Palmieri stated that a new offering next fall will introduce students to Natural Resource Conservation and plans are being made to offer a Veterinary Science class the following year as this program continues to expand.

Depending on the class curriculum, students spend 30 minutes on instruction and the remaining 85-minute session is spent with hands-on activities; planting seeds, tending plants, harvesting fruits and vegetables and caring for animals.

In addition to a variety of domestic and exotic chickens, the AG program includes three turkeys (a tom and two jennies), four adult goats and two kids born earlier this year, one during class time.  All the animals have names, with the most recent goat born on a very cold March day named Jack Frost.

A dozen turkey eggs are being incubated and those that hatch- Palmieri isn’t sure they’ve all been fertilized- will be added to the turkey flock.

Occasionally, animals will be processed and the meat will be frozen for future use during the Food Science classes, which gives students a better understanding of the farm to table concept.

Palmieri stated that processing an animal, such as a goat, is done off-site but a class or student could decide if they wanted to learn to process a chicken.

In the greenhouse, Floraculture students plant and care for their own trays of flowers and learn to propagate new plants from cuttings. Instructors also get in on trying special projects, such as growing a pineapple plant from the cut off top of a fresh pineapple,  getting it to bloom, and produce fruit.

The school’s orchard contains forty fruit trees, including apple, pear, asian pear, pawpaw, persimmon and jujube. Students learn how to prune the trees for better fruit production and when to harvest. In addition to using fresh fruit in class, students also learn how to peel,  dice and freeze fruit to be used later. In a recent Food Science class, students added frozen diced jujube fruit to a basic oatmeal cookie dough.

Students also grow three types of nuts-  chestnut, pecan and hazelnut-  but harvesting them has been a battle with local wildlife. Palmieri shared that students enjoyed roasted chestnuts last year before their winter break but squirrels got to all the pecans and deer ate the hazelnuts.

In addition to a ground level row garden, students tend to raised beds, with three accessible to students with disability issues, close to a paved path and 24 inches high. These raised beds allow each student to have their own garden with a variety of plants, grown from seed and monitored until ready for harvesting.

For Palmieri, the study of agriculture- even if students only participate in one class- is about learning life skills because everyone needs to know about food, and where it comes from.

For advanced students, the program offers paid internships where students come to school during breaks and/or weekends and help the instructors care for the plants and animals.

Even with students milling about, chickens clucking, turkeys gobbling and goats running about, the atmosphere inside East High’s  agriculture campus is very relaxed. Instructors Killen, Palmieri, and Kick wear jeans, t-shirts, and work aprons. For Kick, who had no real experience teaching agriculture, working with students in the program has turned out to be ideal.

“I just wish I had known about doing something like this sooner,” he said.

Currently, only students enrolled in East High, a neighborhood classified school, can participate in the AG program but Palmieri stated steps are being taken to open enrollment to all KCPS high school students as part of its Signature School program.