In the June issue, the Hyattsville Life and Times ran a story on the Climate Change Action Plan and the efforts we undertook to collaborate on the plan and advocate for its adoption.
You can read the story here.
Category: News
The Washington Post published a story on the adoption of the PGCPS Climate Change Action Plan. You can read the full story here.
Maryland Sierra Club distributed a press release alerting of the successful adoption of the PGCPS Climate Change Action Plan
On the night of April 28, 2022 the Prince George’s County Board of Education adopted the Climate Change Action Plan that we have been advocating for. It has eight priority recommendations that cover everything we won in the original March 1, 2021 Board of Education Resolution.
We are thrilled with the success of the campaign, especially given the urgent need to act on climate change and reduce the threat to future generations. We could not have done it with out all of of our supporters, especially all of the student advocates that joined us along the way.
Thank You!
The Climate Action Plan is coming and in order to get it adopted we will need to let the Prince George’s County Board of Education know we want it. It covers all seven of the areas of concern we wanted to see (education, buildings, electricity, transportation, food, waste, and storm water/land-use) and also strives to ensure equity of outcomes and a dialog with students and other stakeholders.
It is a good plan. And we all need to speak up to say that.
So please sign up to testify. The opportunities to sign up to speak at Board Meetings happen quick so let us know if you can participate and we will let you know when to register. The next meeting we will need you to testify at is on March 24 so please let us know if you can by March 21, 2022.
We are thankful that we were invited on February 10, 2022 to testify in favor of the Electric School Bus Pilot Program (HB696) sponsored by Delegate David Fraser-Hidalgo (HD-15). If enacted, this legislation would create a program to create a partnership with utilities and schools to offset the higher costs of electric school buses and allow the batteries in the buses to be used on the grid when not needed for getting kids to of from school. Our lead volunteer spoke of the efforts of Prince George’s County Public Schools to plan for electric buses and on the negative health consequences of diesel pollution on children.
We are thankful that we were invited on February 8, 2022 to testify in favor of the Green School Construction Act of 2022 (HB365) sponsored by Delegate Marc Korman (HD-16). If enacted, this legislation would prevent the state of Maryland from providing matching dollars for installation of most fossil-fuel equipment in Maryland schools. Our lead volunteer spoke of the efforts of Prince George’s County Public Schools to switch to fossil fuel free heating and cooling systems and the need for change.
On February 3 at Second FY23 PGCPS Budget Listening Session two advocates spoke in favor of having a Sustainability/Resilieny Officer. Community advocate and County Council candidate Lisa Burnam spoke in favor and additionally in favor of healthy meals for students among other topics. One of our volunteers spoke in favor and additionally in favor of installing energy management systems in PGCPS buildings.
We also wanted to say that we support continuing access to alternative learning resources such as those at Community Base Classrooms.
We are excited that at the January 13, 2022 PGCPS Board of Education Meeting Dan Daughtry-Weiss of Cheverly spoke in favor of having a PGCPS Sustainability Officer and the Climate Change Action Plan. You can share your story too. Sign up to testify.