Jenny Seydel, Executive Director of Green Schools National Network and Jonathan Klein, Co-Founder and CEO of UndauntedK12 at the award ceremony for the Best of Green Schools Michelle Curreri Collaborator Award held at the Green Schools Conference on March 6, 2024.
We are thrilled to spotlight the remarkable journey of the Climate Ready Schools Coalition. Launched in 2022 with our partner UndauntedK12, and co-led by Ten Strands’ chief innovation officer Andra Yeghoian, the coalition has expanded to include thirty members from various organizations across the state. The coalition brings together education, climate, health, youth, labor, civil rights, and business leaders to collaborate on supporting California policy makers, agencies, and district leaders to adopt, resource, and implement nation-leading policies to decarbonize every school building and ensure school buildings and grounds are healthy and resilient in a time of rapidly increasing extreme weather.
One of the coalition’s focuses in 2023 was on the development of a statewide master plan through Senate Bill (SB) 394. Led by Senator Lena Gonzalez, the bill would have supported state agencies in ensuring schools are equitably upgraded with clean energy technologies like heat pumps to keep students safer and healthier during heat waves and wildfires by providing efficient cooling and air filtration. In addition to aligning existing state spending, the master plan would have expanded California’s resources for school updates by ensuring schools take advantage of new incentives in the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for solar, energy storage, and heat pumps—money that California might otherwise leave on the table. Many of the ideas in this master plan bill stem from the ideas in the Climate Resilient Schools Call to Action Report (released in March 2023), and the associated virtual policy forum on Climate-Resilient California Schools, that the coalition supported in April 2023.
Although it passed with overwhelming support in both the California State Senate and Assembly, the master plan bill (SB 394) was ultimately vetoed by Governor Newsom, who in his message cited the lack of its $10 million allocation as well as the costs associated with implementing SB 394 as the reasons for its veto. Despite the setback of SB 394’s veto, the coalition has remained committed to advocating for healthy, resilient, and sustainable school infrastructure.
Moving forward to 2024, the Climate Ready Schools Coalition has continued to build on the momentum generated last year, and has already achieved notable accomplishments this legislative cycle. In December, the coalition hosted another policy forum on protecting student health and learning with heat-resilient schools. The coalition is also focused on six different advocacy priorities, which you can learn about on the updated website here.
One of these priorities is SB 1182, The Climate Resilient Schools Act, introduced by Senator Gonzalez has introduced, which builds off of the previous bill and aims to streamline statewide efforts to assist schools in aligning with California’s climate goals through modernization and adaptation, while also leveraging federal incentives for clean energy upgrades under the Inflation Reduction Act. The plan also aims to mitigate climate risks, enhance sustainability, and reduce harmful emissions from school facilities by pinpointing policy gaps, ensuring equitable allocation of state resources, and recommending overall priorities for school facilities programs.
“The Climate Resilient Schools Act will help protect our students and frontline communities from the adverse impacts of the climate crisis while simultaneously addressing the crisis itself,” said Majority Leader Gonzalez (D-Long Beach). “It is a timely opportunity we simply cannot miss, especially as our state benefits from federal funds that can be utilized to construct sustainable schools, minimize pollution, and ensure our students remain healthy and safe as they learn, despite the challenges posed by climate change.”
Agreeing with Senator Gonzalez, Andra Yeghoian also shared, “A master plan for Climate Resilient Schools is needed at this time to accelerate the pace of change for California’s TK–12 schools and to do so with a vision that is equity-informed and supports multi-directional communication across state, county, and local agencies. This master plan will serve as a much-needed catalyst and foundation for TK–12 schools in their ability to mitigate, adapt, and educate students for a climate-resilient future.”
We are also delighted to share that the Climate Ready Schools Coalition was named one of the Center for Green Schools and Green Schools National Network 2024 recipients of the Best of Green Schools Awards! We’ve been working with this coalition to ensure that California’s school buildings and grounds are developed as sites of climate resilience and decarbonization, using our collective power to support California policy makers, agencies, and district leaders to take the lead on climate action. We believe that California must protect our children from climate change, which threatens their health, learning, and well-being.
The Best of Green Schools Awards were announced on March 6 during the national Green Schools Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The awards celebrate the hard work being done—by people, schools, campuses and organizations—to push the green schools movement forward. The Climate Ready Schools Coalition is supported by UndauntedK12 and Ten Strands. Read the official announcement from the U.S. Green Building Council.
