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Our Future of Systemic Change

AGC believes that nothing in education is proprietary. Through modeling our belief in scaling innovation, we are committed to sharing our struggles, successes and best practice modules to support districts in customizing to meet the diverse needs of individual schools, communities, students and families. AGC has personally shared our story with over 4,500 local, national and international visitors since opening in 2008.

  • Positive Nutrition
    & Student Wellness

    As an innovative environmental public charter school focused on nutritional wellness, environmental awareness, and global citizenship, and Midwest’s first and the nation’s second recipient of the USDA’s highest honor in its Healthier US School Challenge Gold with Distinction Award (presented in conjunction with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative), AGC is in a unique position to extend and scale its innovations. Leveraging this success, AGC began piloting a healthy food program within the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) food system. Components of our program have been adopted by CPS and are now impacting over 400,000 students.

  • Sustainable
    Schools Handbook

    As we strive to prepare our students for excelling in the 21st century, we must also work with them to create a healthy and sustainable world. Recognized as one of the nation’s first Green Ribbon School by the Obama Administration, AGC has assembled efforts and stories from across the globe in addition to systematizing our internal best practices in the development of a handbook that has been adopted by schools around the world. We extend our discoveries with the hope of inspiring you to take another step with your school community and encourage you to choose a few sections and begin there; it is never too late and no step is ever too small – the tides of change begin with a single drop.

  • Organic Edible
    Garden Manual

    In order to support school garden food safety, AGC is partnering with FamilyFarmed.org, the USDA, and Chartwells Thompson Hospitality to develop the School Garden Food Safety Project. This project will produce a manual that describes best practices in food safety for school gardens and outlines a template that individual schools may use to create an approved school garden food safety plan. AGC and its partners in the School Garden Food Safety Project will soon release the manual for national use and adoption by schools, districts and food service providers interested in school garden food production.