California advocates call for Governor Newsom and legislature to support a master plan for climate-resilient schools
Over 700 educators, 169 health professionals, over 60 students, labor advocates, and 35 organizations submitted letters today urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to support SB 394 (Gonzalez), which would create a master plan for sustainable and climate-resilient schools.
Image from Cal Heat Assessment Tool
For SB 394 – a first of its kind bill in the nation – to move forward, California legislators need to either secure a one-time $10 million dollar investment from the General Fund or designate the funding from already allocated climate-related grants.
Read the press release and letters from educators, health professionals, students, labor advocates, and coalition organizations.
Photo by note thanun on Unsplash
It has never been more clear that California’s schools lack essential infrastructure to safeguard student health and learning in the face of increasingly extreme weather and a rapidly changing climate. From hurricanes, to heat waves, to the wildfire smoke that is sure to foul the air this fall, students urgently need access to the healthier classrooms that clean energy upgrades provide.
California spends $15 billion dollars every year on building, modernizing, maintaining, and operating its school facilities, but due to a misalignment between the state’s climate resiliency targets and its school policy, this funding can still go to outdated fossil fuel equipment that pollutes air quality and fuels climate change.
If approved, SB 394 would support state agencies in ensuring schools are equitably upgraded with clean energy technologies like heat pumps, which can keep students safer and healthier during heat waves and wildfires by providing efficient cooling and air filtration. Children of color, low-income children, and children living in rural communities are more likely to attend schools with inadequate infrastructure.
In addition to aligning existing state spending, the master plan will expand 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. If just 100 California schools take advantage of this funding, the IRA could deliver $400 million in clean energy investments to the state.
