Florida School Brings Agriculture into Classroom Earlier

Instead of heading to a sports field or music room after school, many students at Academy at the Farm near Dade City, Florida spend their afternoons caring for nearly 100 farm animals.

The pre-K through 8th-grade public charter school  integrates agriculture into its science curriculum from an unusually early age. Elementary students participate in monthly lessons and there’s an option for daily agriculture classes starting in sixth grade.

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “A lot of kids automatically have the idea that agriculture is just playing with animals all day, or feeding animals or having pets or something like that. And we want to expand their horizons and have the knowledge that agriculture is actually giving us life. So it’s providing us with food, it’s providing us with resources and commodities that we need….And our goal is that by the time they leave our school, they go into the world as more informed consumers so they are then able to then inform other consumers.”

Opened 23 years ago, officials say the school was already performing well academically before expanding its agricultural focus a decade ago. As of 2024, it had again earned Florida’s “A” school designation, landing in the top 12% of the state’s public schools.

The school, located 40 miles northeast of Tampa, has 825 students and a waiting list of over 3,000. With that kind of interest, Academy at the Farm has decided to open a high school next year.

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “When I came here 10 years ago, academics and high expectations were the things that were drawing kids…Today there are people that absolutely want to come to our school because of our agriculture program.”

Newly-retired School Director Ray Polk, who was raised nearby on what was then a 6,000-acre cattle ranch, laments the decline of local agriculture as urban sprawl replaces livestock and citrus groves.

Ray Polk, Director, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “Tampa is moving our way and it’s coming 4,000 homes at a time….I felt like kids needed to know where their food comes from. Less and less kids are educated with that. And, I found that kids thought that, you know, their hamburger came from McDonalds.”

Polk says they have always have always had high expectations related to behavior and the agriculture component has played directly into that.

Ray Polk, Director, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “It’s an interesting phenomena to me when you can take kids that are struggling or having trouble, and you take them over to the barn for 15 minutes and it can change the whole day….You can go hand them a baby goat and their life changes. It’s almost like magic.”

The after-school agriculture program is self-sustaining through fundraising and agricultural product sales. Despite the focus on agriculture, the school still prioritizes core academics.

Ray Polk, Director, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “The state doesn’t test whether the kids know how a pig has piglets…What they test on is their math, reading and writing.”

Polk credits the agriculture program’s success to the wife and husband teaching team of Robin and Tim Carter. Robin, who previously taught in one of the grade school classrooms, developed the curriculum after building a highly successful after-school 4-H club, while Tim, a former P.E. teacher, now manages the barns.

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “I integrate a lot of the Florida science standards into the elementary agriculture lessons that I do. So that’s how I support the elementary teachers. …I talk a lot about what it means to be a scientist. I talk a lot about what it means to research something and not just believing everything you hear but to actually go to a good source …to get your information from.”

Students also have the option to care for animals on the school grounds, many of them preparing to show at fairs, events which boosts parental interest and community support.

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “They see how our kids work together at the county and state fair, and they love the camaraderie and teamwork they show to each other.”

Agriculture is also used as a way to teach resilience as the school allows the students to directly face hardships when they arise.

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “In education sometimes, the expectation is everything is done perfect all the time. And in agriculture, that’s not how life goes. You could have a project or a crop or an animal that suddenly passes away or suddenly dies or there’s a hurricane or something happens. And you have to be able to roll with the punches.”

Families whose children want to show market animals through 4-H or FFA typically buy their animal and cover most costs associated with raising them on-site. Other students can be assigned to care for a non-market animal, such as a dairy cow or hen, for a year.

Grants and donations have enabled the Academy to expand the outdoor facilities.

Tim Carter, Barn Manager, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “After school, if you have an animal here, it has got to be fed, it’s got to be taken care of, and on the weekends .…They are responsible for feeding and any changes. And we work on showmanship practice and get ready for fairs and shows… Most of the kids that we get, we’re very lucky. They don’t grumble about the work at all. …And these projects are also family projects. You know, a 10-year-old can’t drive themselves here on a Saturday to feed their animals.”

Seventeen-year-old Christiana Williams, a former student, still keeps pigs on site and helps younger children with their projects.

Christiana Williams, Former Student, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “So the really nice thing about this is everything is hands on. …When I first started, I told the Carters that I would never ever give a vaccination to a pig. It freaked me out. I didn’t like needles, I didn’t like anything like that. Flash forward a couple months later and I was giving almost all the injections in the barn.”

Eleven-year-old Connor Groover sees the program as life preparation.

Connor Groover, Student, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “Having to stay responsible to feed them and, like, being responsible with my money, having to pay for their food and all their equipment and stuff.”

Robin Carter, Agriculture Science Teacher, Academy at the Farm, Dade City, Florida: “We need to create students who are feeling confident at an early age to be outside, getting their hands dirty, being hands-on. If I can get a kid to pick up a drill at home instead of a cell phone at home, that makes me really, really happy. And middle school kids are at an age where I feel like they’re not given a lot of trust so, when you give them that trust, they just shine.”

By Colleen Bradford Krantz, colleen.krantz@iowapbs.org