SOUTH KENT — It’s standardized testing and exams season, and the South Kent School students are in the weeds — literally — of the budding agricultural program on the school’s North Campus farm.
Half of the North Campus spring crew was waylaid by academic constraints during a visit to the school’s redeveloping sustainable agriculture and culinary education facilities in the afternoon sunshine on the first of May. The four who came, though, were grateful for the chance to get outside and enjoy the physicality of farm labor.
Tenth-grader Gerd P., who joined the farm program for the spring term, said the hands-on work is a “great distraction” from the more bookish obligations of boarding school life. His mother is Indigenous Peruvian, from a family who farmed on the rockier, sandier mountain soils of the Andes. He said that he appreciates getting in touch with the land as a connection to his mother and his heritage.
Head of School Brian Sullivan said that those connections to the earth, to the body, and to the physical product of the students’ labor are sometimes difficult to cultivate in a traditional classroom setting. “We’re letting the boys get their hands dirty,” he said.
He noted that 2025 is a ripe year to experiment with alternative learning models. “There’s such an opportunity to rethink and re-envision” what an academic curriculum should look like, he said. “I whole-heartedly believe a high school education is so much more than just science and math.”
The North Campus farm was originally bought for the school 12 years ago by two anonymous alumni who helped spearhead and develop the facility and program as “a center of innovation,” said Sullivan.
After years of student-led growth, the farm was productive and even possessed some livestock, however the COVID-19 pandemic and administration changes in the school caused farm operations to fall by the wayside in the years after 2020, said North Campus Director and Assistant Dean of Students Richard Chavka.
Chavka has been with the farm since its inception and said he found a ready partner when Sullivan took over duties at the school in 2023. Chavka remembers speaking to Sullivan about the possibilities of the 128-acre plot of land that extends down to the northern shoreline of Hatch Pond. “We’re really sitting on a gold mine out here — why don’t we take another shot?” the two had wondered.
The crew, plus Chavka, Sullivan, Sullivan’s son and a dog named Tally-Ho, in front of the barn which houses the kitchen. Alec Linden
The rebuilding process is well underway, which Chavka said has been an exercise in problem solving and adaptation, largely led by the students themselves, which has been a boon to the operation because, in Chavka’s words, “these guys are pretty smart.” Chavka said that it’s important that the farm grows on its own — and the students’ — terms: “It’s going to grow organically, no pun intended” The operation is currently seeking an official organic designation from the Northeast Organic Farming Association.
Two greenhouses, which Sullivan and Chavka said were impenetrably choked with weeds a year before, are now clear and orderly. One of them houses a neat array of grow tables and raised beds — all student built — sporting sprouts and some healthy-looking carrot and spinach plants, irrigated by a drip-timed watering system that was also designed by the North Campus team.
Vignesh P., who has had some agricultural experience at home in India, said that his favorite part of the spring North Campus curriculum was actually building the tables and beds in the greenhouse. He enjoyed the tactility and clear sense of purpose the build brought, which school Director of Communications Sarah Chase said is a core motivation of the North Campus program.
“When students take charge, they’re not just managing a task—they’re collaborating, adapting, and creating something together that didn’t exist before,” she said. She explained that the core ethos of the farming and culinary instruction curriculum is for the students, by means of collaboration and leadership initiative, to learn “to do right by the land and by each other.”
“It’s amazing to see your labor get finished,” said George W., a 10th grader from Hong Kong whose urban upbringing was far removed from the food production industry.
George is transferring next year and is disappointed he won’t be able to participate in the North Campus’ “plow-to-plate” programming that will be ramping up next year. Besides growing and harvesting of food, the other half of the North Campus’ mission focuses on cooking it.
Hidden inside a formidable barn-like structure is a state-of-the-art industrial kitchen that will host classes and programs teaching South Kent students about culinary arts and the farm-to-table restaurant business. The school has been hosting Friday night culinary sessions where local chefs, school staff and other food-service professionals lead workshops for the students.
As crop growing scales up, produce picked just outside the door will be used in these sessions. Chavka eventually plans to start supplying the school dining hall, as well as local food banks. Having a service element “is really important” to the broader purpose of the North Campus as not just a school resource, but one that benefits the whole community.
While those goals are down the road, the farm already has had impacts on the crew of high-schoolers who spend every afternoon bringing it back to life. Nekhel M., an 11th grade member of the spring farm crew, said that the wholesome aspect of watching the growing process from seeding to sprouting has compelled him to think about pursuing food systems beyond the North Campus. “I might have my own farm when I get older,” he said.
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.