PARLIER – A motivated group of students has, in a fairly literal sense, laid the groundwork for improvements to Parlier High School’s agriculture program.
Starting in early June through the first half of July, Parlier High School students got hands-on agricultural experience through a six-week summer internship. Working as a coordinated team, the interns welded, laid cement and did some woodwork to bring a number of upgrades to the school’s farm, including a brand new chicken coop.
Throughout the internship, students also shared their knowledge across the district by visiting various summer programs to give demonstrations. On July 15, a group of elementary students took a trip to the PHS farm, where the interns led rotating stations to showcase all of the work they had done while highlighting some of the ag-centric opportunities the school offers.
“It makes sure that the kids are actually learning something, and they’re able to teach it to someone else,” said James Clawson, PHS ag and plant science instructor, in an interview. “It also builds that future generation of kids that are coming into my program.”
Clawson said that this is the second year that PHS has offered summer ag internships, combining both ag and welding students to transform the farm. Alongside the more sweat-inducing tasks, he said that another goal of the internship is to give students early exposure to some of the finer details of employment, such as properly filling out an employee packet, that are not always explained to those first entering the workforce.
The interns worked on a schedule that consisted of 20-hour weeks, usually spread across three days. In that time, they: demolished sections of the barn to lay new cement and fabricate pens, began work on the new two-level chicken coop, trenched and installed new irrigation for the greenhouse, prepped the soil for a pumpkin patch and much more, all within six weeks.
Emmanuel Garnette, an upcoming senior and welding student, shared in an interview that this experience served as his first-ever internship. Not one to stay at home “doing nothing” over the summer, Garnette said he thoroughly enjoyed his time with the program and was sad to see it come to an end.
He noted that working on the barn improvements was one of the biggest welding projects he’s taken on thus far, and had fun working as part of a larger group.
“We’re all doing our parts,” said Gernette. “The agriculture kids do their part and we do our part, and we all work separately so that we can get things done faster.”
For ag students like Guadalupe Ramirez, upcoming senior and Future Farmers of America president, this internship provided an opportunity to acquire new skills while building upon old ones.
Ramirez said that working on the chicken coop was one of her favorite parts of the whole experience, because she’s loved woodworking with her father since a young age. Through this internship, she said she gained more confidence using a saw, and learned how to precisely measure sections of wood to cut.
Reflecting on the six-week period, Ramirez said that another highlight of the internship was getting closer to students she might not have otherwise gotten to know.
“I like the camaraderie that we all have, just being with everyone and talking with everyone,” Ramirez said. “There’s a lot of kids that I didn’t know previous to this, and I just talked to them. I’m friends with them now and I feel like we’re all just a good team.”
The team work doesn’t end with the students, however. Speaking on some of the internship program’s strengths, Clawson said that the reason students get such a wide variety of experiences is thanks to teachings and supervision from fellow PHS instructors Oscar Flores and Brenna Kovacevich, as well as Parlier Junior High School FFA instructor Samantha Wagner.
Clawson said that working alongside Wagner is especially exciting given PJHS’ recently built greenhouse. As the junior high continues to expand its ag education, Clawson hopes that the district can build out its ag programs from the top down.
“We’re trying to align the curriculum so that they can get some base knowledge over there and continue that growth here,” Clawson said. “We’re trying to get to that point where we can kind of grow through the whole district and get out kids learning at an early age, so that by the time they get to us here at the high school, we’re confident they have base-level knowledge of agriculture and it’s not completely new.”
Looking to the future of ag internships, Clawson said he hopes to eventually create more plant science-focused opportunities at the Fantz Environmental Center. Once the PHS facilities are in a strong enough place to better sustain animal growth, he said he would also like to teach students more about showmanship as they raise more show animals.
A single visit to the farm makes the passion of both students and staff apparent, and according to Clawson, the ongoing desire to nurture these seeds of growth runs districtwide.
“The collaboration of the superintendent, all of the board members and just everybody supporting it is one of the big things that makes this a success; it’s really a group effort,” Clawson said.
