The Maryland General Assembly is an opportunity to advocate for help at the County level for school climate policy, and we have been continuing our work providing support for laws that will lead to greenhouse-gas-free schools and against laws that would counter that work. We do this as part of the Maryland Climate Justice Wing. Here is testimony that we submitted in the 2026 legislative session.

PGCPS has a new Interim Superintendent, Dr. Shawn Joseph.  To kick off his tenure he has been holding listening sessions with parents and other interested parties.  We were able to attend the session for Board of Education District 2 to make sure he was aware of the importance of the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), that the staff are doing an excellent job implementing the plan, and that it would both benefit the environment and save PGCPS money in many areas. He spoke that he was supportive of the CCAP.

You can listen to the session here.

Happy #EarthDay 🌎

We know things aren’t going well, but remember you can still make a difference at the grass roots level. For inspiration you can read how school districts around the US are leading on #ClimateAction! Maybe you can lead in your schools too?

This new book, “Students, Schools and our Climate Moment” by Laura A. Schifter and Jonathan Klein is out now on Harvard Press. They write of sucessful climate action in schools around the County, including our work right here in Prince George’s County.  You can order it here.

Students, Schools, and Our Climate Moment Book Cover

On February 6 we spoke at the PGCPS Budget Hearing in support of continued funding for climate action in our schools including solar installation, hiring crossing guards, finding state and private funding for school climate action, funding student environmental learning, and more in the FY26 operating budget.  You can watch our testimony below.

We submitted testimony concerning proposed updates to COMAR-14.39.02 that the Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC) is considering to implement HB 19, the Safe Walk To School Act, and HB 566, which requires new schools to have multi-stream waste streams. The regulation are straight forward and implement Maryland law.

You can read the testimony here.

We submitted comments on the final recommendations proposed by the Prince George’s Council School Pedestrian Task Force. Overall their recommendations were great, but some tweaks were needed. Some of our suggestions were adopted by the the task force as well. If implemented this will make our children’s walks to school safer and more sustainable.

You can read the comments here.