On January 25 testimony was given on the FY25 Budget Hearing by two Climate Parents volunteers.  Nate from Eleanor Roosevelt High School spoke on the importance of PGCPS providing funding for solar installations on his school and others throughout the county and Joseph spoke on the need for funding for solar, crossing guards, and composting programs, as well as the need to take advantage of all of the federal and state grant programs that are available to schools.  You can check out the video to hear the testimony from us and other concerned residents.

There is also one more PGCPS FY25 Budget Hearing on February 15.  You should register to speak up for funding of school climate action.

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• February 15, 2024 - Budget Hearing

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We testified in favor of two bills at the the December 4 Prince George’s House Delegation Meeting

The first bill was PG 301-24, which would authorize stop sign cameras, which is important for the safety of young students that walk or bike to school.  Read the testimony.

We also spoke in favor 501-24 that would study the feasibility of relocating the Board of Education headquarters.  This would align with one of the commendaitons found in the Climate Change Action Plan. Read the testimony testimony.

On October 25, we testified to the Prince George’s County Board of Education Operations, Budget, and Fiscal Affairs
(OBFA) Committee on the need to include important climate action items in the PGCPS FY25 operating budget. Those include:

• Continue to fund the new sustainability/resiliency officer position.
• Continue to fund the Student Environmental Alliance Summit.
• Perform a comprehensive energy audit of all existing buildings.
• Purchase solar energy through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
• Begin purchasing Electric Vehicles (EVs) and electric grounds maintenance equipment.
• Fund a baseline assessment for food waste.
• Provide staff funding for expansion of composting pilot programs to more schools.
• Provide funding for maintaining natural turf fields.
• Ensure that purchases related to school food packaging lead to less packaging that is destined to
  the landfill by switching to packaging that is compostable, recyclable, or just reduced in amount.
• Invest in planting more native trees across the school system.

You can read the full comment letter here.

The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service issued a major proposal updating school nutrition standards to be based on the latest science.  Our students need access to health meal to learn and climate-friendly foods to reduce our impact on the planet and get PGCPS to net-zero.  We reviewed the proposal and provided the following comments to the USDA to call for healthy, sustainable nutrition standards.

Read the comments.

In January 2023 PGCPS issued its first report on the progress they have made in implementing the Climate Change Action Plan.  The report shows excellent progress implementing the plan.  It looks us awhile to digest all of the details in the progress report, but we did and provided feedback to the school system. You can read those comments here.

One March 23, 2023 one of our volunteers attended the Prince George’s Board of Education meeting to thank the Board for supporting state legislation that would make the community solar program permanent and would phase out diesel school buses as well as opposing legislation that would shrink school zones drastically.  He also spoke on the need for dashboards set up by PGCPS to include progress on implementing the Climate Change Action Plan.

Watch the testimony.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bc0jDOkvVNU?feature=share&t=5647

On Thursday January 26, 2023 we voiced support for the County Executive to ensure funding for the PGCPS  Climate Change Action Plan, to end funding for synthetic turf, and to fund safer streets for students to walk and bike to school on.

Read the full text:

Thank you, County Executive Alsobrooks for this opportunity to address you on the FY24 budget.

My name is Joseph Jakuta and the lead volunteer for Climate Parents of Prince Georges.

Climate Parents is a campaign to reduce climate change causing pollution in our schools, and our group is active in Prince George’s County. In particular, we recently worked directly with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) technical staff and other advocates to develop a first in the national School Climate Change Action Plan.

PGCPS will certainly ask for funds in regards what is necessary to implement their Climate Change Action Plan which was constructed as a complement to the one adopted by the County Council.

Support should be provided for what they need to implement this, including, but not limited to, funding for solar installations, energy management, electric buses, food waste reduction, climate friendly foods, electric heat pump HVACs, and green infrastructure.

Additionally, PGCPS’s CEO Monica Goldson recently announced the school system will discontinue installation of new synthetic turf fields.  We ask that the County commit to ending funding for new synthetic turf fields on their park properties as well. This both helps the environment, children’s health, and alleviates ballooning end-of-life costs to the county.

The county also has a role in making our streets safe for walkers and bikers.  Students do not have access to buses in our county if they are within 1 1/2 mile of elementary schools and 2 miles of other schools.  Those students need safe routes to school.  They need better investments in sidewalks, bike lanes, and traffic safety.  And the county must prioritize that over road expansion. 

Last, but certainly not least, we cannot have a sustainable future without a stable functioning democracy.  In 2018 legislation (CB-99-2018) was passed allowing for matching funds of election candidates in Prince George’s County, but this Fair Election Fund has yet to be budgeted.  The FY24 budget must include the funds to allow this program to flourish.