Virginia Turfgrass Council – Education Spotlight on Brentsville District High School’s Turfgrass Management Program

Virginia Turfgrass Journal - Drew Miller, Program Director In 2016, Brentsville Turfgrass Management was born with the simple idea of creating a curriculum focused on hands-on experience in the green industry. There was a significant shift from an Agriculture/Horticulture focus to Turfgrass, where jobs in the northern Virginia area were blossoming. In those early days, [...]

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Virginia Turfgrass Journal – Drew Miller, Program Director

In 2016, Brentsville Turfgrass Management was born with the simple idea of creating a curriculum focused on hands-on experience in the green industry. There was a significant shift from an Agriculture/Horticulture focus to Turfgrass, where jobs in the northern Virginia area were blossoming. In those early days, few resources were available to the program, and any new educational endeavor took time to establish. Now, three years into the program, enrollment has tripled as students gained a new passion for turfgrass and taking pride in their work.

Our program aims to have every student prepared to enter the industry the day they walk across that graduation stage. Our job is to train students in all aspects of the industry, ranging from safe machine operation to workplace readiness to the knowledge of grasses and pesticides to painting a field. We want to inspire our students to better themselves each and every day, no matter what their future goals are. Ours is a specialty program where students anywhere in the Prince William County School district can take these classes by transferring to Brentsville District High School.

Our classes focus on hands-on learning by placing our students in that workplace setting, whether it’s the paint crew for that week’s football game or landscaping the elementary school down the road. We want to teach them how to use proper techniques and maintain a safe workplace environment so that all of our students are a part of an effective learning environment that becomes their own space of creativity where they can thrive. We allow our students to take ownership of their education by empowering them to make their work decisions, whether it is a simple decision like a mowing pattern in the landscape or a large one like creating the stencil for our football field for the entire season. We want our students to take pride in their work and this program. It is incredible to watch a student grow from a point where they might not have seen this program as a real opportunity, commit to what we do, and then develop a passion and become a lifelong learner.

Our program aims to provide unique opportunities for our students to understand career opportunities better. Our classes take annual trips to Virginia Tech, Penn State, and the University of Maryland. When our students visit these universities, they can envision the opportunities these college programs can present to them in the industry. Students can make a connection for future opportunities and form relationships that can change their lives. Our program also was built on the idea of serving others while learning our craft. As we have grown, we have spent time working in the community, providing services, educating better, and improving green spaces. We have spent time renovating landscapes, painting other schools’ fields, renovating baseball mounds, and so much more. We aim to better our Prince William community while giving our students more opportunities to learn and better our craft. We have created different opportunities, including the Brentsville Turf Homecoming Tour, where we went to seven different high schools and painted their fields with a unique design to make their homecoming games memorable. That is why our extra-curricular group, the Brentsville Turf Grounds Crew, has become a common name in the Northern Virginia area. This past year our students were contracted to help with the conversion of Audi Field from an MLS soccer game to an XFL football game for national television. Our high school students have become young industry professionals through their work in the classroom.

Other professional opportunities that we want for our students include internships and jobs that will further their experiences. We have made great connections with different golf course superintendents, sports turf managers, and landscape companies where our students can get years of experience in the industry. Our students gain so much from these jobs because they can make informed decisions about their futures. This work experience also builds a resume that will set them up to further their careers at a younger age.

With COVID-19, we have been tested with 100% virtual learning, which is not ideal for our classroom style. In our virtual state, we have adapted with the creation of a podcast called Tiger Turf Talk, where we host industry professionals such as Will Brierly, head groundskeeper at Wimbledon tennis club, to Casey Underwood, Assistant Athletic Director in charge of athletic fields, discussing their careers, different cultural practices, stories, and other aspects through which the students can learn about the industry first hand from these professionals. This is also creating networks for our students in the industry across the country and abroad, providing future opportunities through this podcast. It has become a big part of our virtual learning space.

With our program’s exponential growth, we look to our future aspirations to create the first Turfgrass Research Center at a high school in the United States. We want to build a center to expand our curriculum to where our students will be conducting trials for schools like Virginia Tech and Penn State. With our unique location in Northern Virginia, we would be working with Bermuda and bluegrass for these universities. This opportunity would allow our students to work directly with some of the Turfgrass industry’s brightest minds. These are the opportunities that we want to provide our students here in the Brentsville Turf Program. We require a tremendous amount of support and funding in order to make this research center a reality. We are excited to see what the future holds for our students and our program.

Brentsville Turfgrass By the Numbers

220 students currently in the program

15.5 acres of sports fields managed (a stadium field, baseball, softball and 5 practice fields)

5 varieties of Bermudagrass

27 acres of Brentsville District High School and the Nokesville School

14 graduates in 4 different college turf program 2020 class

Over 30 students in an internship or job in related fields

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