District to initiate hub for education, enterprise

(Marion) – Marion ISD is planting more than just seeds at its newest property. The site includes the former Schulz Nursery along with the Subway restaurant in the 100 block of W. Huebinger.

Thanks to innovative foresight, district officials say it is planting opportunities at this new site while also reviving a piece of the community’s history, and creating a one-of-a-kind learning lab known as Green S.P.A.C.E.

According to CTE Coordinator and teacher Dwayne Reiley, the name of the program carries a double meaning. He says “Green” is a nod to the former nursery that once operated for 60 years while “S.P.A.C.E.” stands for Students Participating in Authentic Career Experiences.

Reiley says the district’s vision for the property was to reimagine it so that it would benefit both students and the town.

“The plan here is to take this property which has been idle for several years. The school district bought it. Luckily, we had a school board and a superintendent that were forward-thinking and saw the opportunity to get this property and what we are doing is we’ve renovated and remodeled the greenhouse which is huge. It’s one of the biggest green houses that I’ve ever been in. We also are going to put in some community gardens. We are going to have a retail space — eventually where students can have and run their own store and then, we also have a Subway that is on that property, and we are going to reopen the Subway restaurant. It’s a pretty unique situation that we have with Subway going on. Some of our students are going to be working there as well,” said Reiley.

Reiley says the project is designed to bring together students from multiple programs across the district.

“We are going to be incorporating students from the agriculture program obviously with the green house. We are going to have students from our business and marketing education (program) with the marketing and running of the store. We are going to utilize our Culinary Arts program to help with Subway and help also with some products to put into the store. We are going to utilize our commercial photography program to help with marketing as well as our audio-visual program. All of those will come in and have different parts in marketing and promotion of that property. We are going to host different events hopefully down the line. I know we’ve talked about a lot of things and while some remain to be seen, know that we are thinking farmer’s markets or community events and all of them will be planned and put together by students,” said Reiley.

While the idea might not be new, Reiley says the venture will be unique to this area.

“I’m not going to say it’s the first of its kind because I know there are some really big districts in parts of Texas that do some things that are somewhat similar, but I know it’s the first anywhere around here and it’s very unique opportunity to give our students a hands on opportunity to learn,” said Reiley.

The district recently celebrated the new Green S.P.A.C.E. with a ribbon cutting. Reiley says the show of support at the event was evidence that the district is headed in the right direction with this project.

“We had kind of what I called our old guard of Marion that came in – folks who have lived for decades that were very curious as to what was going on with the property and remembered the nursery in its hay day. In fact, one of the owners of Schulz Nursery, Jim Schulz, was there himself to kind of see what we did with the property and I hope that we made him proud with what has transpired so far and with him, he brought some of his relatives who had worked in that nursery back in the 70s and 80s and I think we got their stamp of approval. Some of the other business owners in Marion came to see what was going on and it seemed that there was a lot of positive feedback, and I think that the people here in what I call Marion proper are glad that that is going to be up and running again,” said Reiley.

The Marion ISD says it’s awaiting word on grant approvals to help establish a clearer timeline for the greenhouse and retail space. Meanwhile, the hope is to have the Subway restaurant open by November.