Burbank Unified School District (BUSD) is made up of two comprehensive high schools, one alternative high school, three middle schools, and eleven elementary schools. The student population in 2004-05 was 15,548. Burbank is located in southern California in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.
School board policy requiring service-learning for high school graduation was implemented in 1999-2000. The BUSD reaffirms the importance of service-learning in connection with academic learning. The district’s vision is for all students to have a minimum of one high-quality service-learning experience delivered through the existing curriculum at each grade span. The BUSD students are applying classroom knowledge and content standards through their service.
Elementary students, staff, and the community actively engage in the Peace Builders Program which has reached sustainability. Peace Builders is integrated with both the social studies and language arts curricula. In addition, one-third of the elementary schools in BUSD have gardens on their campuses where they grow and donate fresh vegetables to the Burbank Temporary Aid Center and grow flowers for senior outreach projects. As students learn about their community, they connect language arts, science, and social studies standards and curriculum.
Middle school students address standards along with environmental issues in their core academic courses. They learn to recycle using three different methods. At one site, each student club collects and recycles a wide variety of items such as paper, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, sneakers, batteries, eyeglasses, hearing aids, or cartridges. Los Angeles Conservation Corporation received an award in the year 2005 for being the number one collector of cans and bottles, and in 2004 they won an award for being Burbank’s “Recycling Heroes.” At all middle school sites, social studies classes are solving social problems through Project Citizen. Students at one site identified a need for better lighting around their school. An impressed City Council member, in the showcase audience, heard the presentation, and took the students’ proposal to the City Council. As a result, new lighting was installed around that school.
High school science students address environmental issues through science, math, language arts, social studies, and elective courses. During the 2004-05 school year, students in a marine biology class researched watershed pollution problems, created and gave presentations of their findings at various sites and gatherings in the community. Several of the students presented their findings to 200 elementary and middle school students, actively engaging them in learning and playing an environmental game. The response was overwhelmingly positive. The high school students work with 100 elementary students on environmental issues and projects through the After-School Education and Safety Program.
Teachers receive training through professional-development workshops on how to use service-learning as a teaching methodology that allows for integration of high-quality service-learning into the curriculum while achieving content standards. The Burbank Recycle Center and Warner Brothers provide extensive personnel, materials, expertise, and time to the development of school gardens and recycling programs.
Burbank Unified School District (Outside Source)
