Save the Date: 3.28.19 S4CA Congressional Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill

Save-the-Date: S4CA Congressional Advocacy Day on 3.28.19
Help Hand-Deliver Climate Action Resolutions from School Boards and Student Councils to Every Congressional Office

On Thursday, March 28th, youth-adult teams with the Schools for Climate Action campaign will deliver a respectful, but assertive message to every of Member of Congress: Congress has both the moral imperative and the ability to act quickly and boldly on climate change. As mandated reporters, education leaders from across the country will no longer be silent witnesses to Congressional climate neglect which harms all our students. As those who will bear the greatest burden from unmitigated climate change, young Americans from across the country will not be silent and will hold leaders to higher standards of responsible climate behavior.

In just over a year, 38 school boards, 8 student councils, 4 PTAs,  and 2 educators' unions from nine states have passed climate action resolutions. In addition, 2 state/national education organizations---the National Black Council of School Board Members (a caucus of the National School Boards Assocation and the California Association of School Psychologists) have also passed resolutions. More student councils, school boards, and education sector organizations and associations are joining the effort and passing new resolutions each week. These resolutions frame climate change, and therefore Congressional climate inaction, as a generational justice, human rights, equity, and children’s issue. These resolutions bear witness to the unfair burden that unmitigated climate change creates for current students and future generations. These resolutions call on Congress to work together to enact commonsense climate policies which protect students and future generations from climate harm. Congress can take immediate, commonsense steps to help create a more sustainable, healthy, and prosperous future for all Americans.

The Schools for Climate Action campaign invites your school or organization to send a youth or youth-adult team to join us as we walk the halls of Congress and amplify the non-partisan voices of the education sector calling for national climate action. We currently expect about 175 participants. We hope that we will have at least 2 youth for every 1 adult. We will host Zoom training sessions mid-March for all participants.

You can donate to the travel fund for teams coming from out of town at the S4CA Gofundme site. We will kick off the day at 8:20 for a Meet and Greet, followed by a panel on the Climate Burden: Climate Impacts on Youth and Schools. The primary audience for this panel is Congressional staffers. Next, 100+ DCPS middle school students will join us for a panel on Climate Solutions with Representative Mike Thompson and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and moderated by S4CA Co-Director Jonah Gottlieb. After this panel we will have a formal Call-to-Action by education leaders and youth leaders. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton will give a final send off after which 150+ youth will hand deliver the resolutions to every member of Congress. We should finish in the early afternoon.

Schools for Climate Action is a non-partisan, youth-adult, grassroots campaign to empower school communities to speak up for climate action. Since December, 2017, 30 school boards and student councils in 5 states have passed non-partisan climate action resolutions.

For more information, please contact [email protected] or visit our website at www.schoolsforclimateaction.org. This event is co-sponsored by Young Voices for the Planet.

To register, please complete this S4CA Congressional Advocacy Day 3.28.19 Interest Form.

Thank you!