Community Partnerships
- The Hillcrest PTA : The PTA has supported many environmental activities through funding, materials, promotions, and parent-volunteers. Some of the major events that receive support include the fish release field trips, the environmental room at Math-Science Night, Earth Week/Turn-Off-Your-TV Week, fish and insect-raising in the classrooms, and educational materials to assist the teachers in using the courtyard gardens. The PTA raised $14000 to create the outdoor classroom space.
- The Old Catonsville Neighborhood Association: the local neighborhood association has assisted with the Earth Week/Turn-Off-Your-TV Week activities by helping to buy trees to be planted and providing volunteers to plant them and to pick up trash in the areas near the school. They also help promote the electronics recycling days.
- Maryland Department of Natural Resources: for approximately 12 years Hillcrest Elementary School has partnered with DNR, implementing an annual raise and release program for fish native to the Patapsco River. DNR has provided many facets to this program, including fish and the instruction to raise them, classroom and field activities, additional materials such as trees for planting on school grounds and for many years assisted with running the full day Fish Release field trip that serves our entire 1st and 3rd grade classes. The Hillcrest PTA Environmental Committee has recently taken over the facilitation of the fish release portion of the program, after many years of instruction and guidance provided by DNR staff. The program still however uses DNR support and utilizes Patapsco State Park's Avalon Area for the release.
- Baltimore County Bureau of Solid Waste Management: provides new recycling bins or dumpsters and sent a public information specialist to lead several assemblies on recycling to reach all the school's students.
- Chesapeake Bay Trust: Hillcrest was awarded a grant from CBT in 2012 for $1,971 to buy native plants and soil amendments for the planting in the courtyard in May-June 2012.
- Catonsville Presbyterian Church: As this church is adjacent to school grounds, in 2010 it gave permission for Hillcrest parents and students to create an outdoor classroom space in their small woods which is close to the school. Hillcrest students, parents and CPC members mulched the area, planted more trees, and created seating places out of logs. Once the school's courtyard opened, the woods-classroom became used during the school day by the CPC's preschool with after-school hours still being a wooded adventure area for Hillcrest students. A new partnership began in 2014 to plan and build a rain garden in a swampy area between the school and the church's parking lots.
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- Master Gardeners: several local Master Gardeners have assisted teachers and students with gardening activities in the school's courtyard and helped extensively with the initial planting. In order to maintain the courtyard, an after-school Jr Master Gardener Club was started in Fall 2012 with help from a local Master Gardener. This club now occurs every Fall and Spring.
- Boy Scouts: in 2011, a former Hillcrest student, Christopher Blair, did his Eagle Scout community service project in the brand-new courtyard by building the structures for several raised gardens. A year later another member of Boy Scout Troup 307 installed several “doggie doo collecting posts & bag-boxes” on school grounds in an effort to keep the school grounds free of pet waste. A Venture scout group has helped to maintain the courtyard by mulching the area in the Fall (even using lights to complete the mulching at night).
- Local landscape architect: a local landscape architect firm, Plusen Llc donated all their services to create the plans for the courtyard and revised them as needed. The design was based on input from parents, teachers and Baltimore County regulations. This partnership has continued as the firm has continued to give advice on layouts and improvements. they are currently helping to design a shade structure for the courtyard to allow it to be used in both bright sunny and rainy days!
- A local graphic design company, JFGraphix, donated their services to develop a flier to fund raise for the courtyard project.
School is active in the community: Electronics Recycling (2009-2013) Each November Hillcrest has sponsored a community-wide electronics recycling day. The event is promoted widely by the students at Hillcrest and through PTA promotions, but also through local neighborhood associations and other schools. Families bring their broken or unwanted electronics to the school and a recycling company collects them for re-purposing or appropriate disposal. Although due to insurance policy and safety students are not allowed to participate at the drop site, they are very much involved in promoting this event. In class, students are introduced to recycling as an option for larger household items and encouraged to motivate their parents and the community to participate.
Recycling by the numbers (only items counted are TVs and monitors):
2013: 7 large TVs, 17 regular TVs, 12 monitors and 1 large truck load of total collected.
2012: 3 large TVs, 13 regular TV, 14 monitors and 1 large truck load of total collected
2011: 53 TVs and monitors and 1.5 large truck loads
2010—BCPS denied approval of event. (It was offered previously at nearby locations).
Recycling by the numbers (only items counted are TVs and monitors):
2013: 7 large TVs, 17 regular TVs, 12 monitors and 1 large truck load of total collected.
2012: 3 large TVs, 13 regular TV, 14 monitors and 1 large truck load of total collected
2011: 53 TVs and monitors and 1.5 large truck loads
2010—BCPS denied approval of event. (It was offered previously at nearby locations).