When: Thursday, Jan 11, 2018 5:30 to 6:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/0c7ee41242195a247510d14dfea9e911 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Here's a description of the webinar:

We plan to inspire and support youth-adult teams empowering school boards in their own districts to speak up for climate action in order to protect current and future students. 

Our training will share:

1. Sebastopol Union's Climate Change Resolution
2. Ideas for creating a multi-stakeholder team in your own district;
3. Steps to engaging and empowering school board members to speak up for climate justice;
4. Multiple benefits of school board climate change/climate justice resolutions;
5. School board climate change/climate justice resolution ideas;
6. Next steps
7. Q and A

We're hoping to help Sebastopol Union School District's great example start a snowball effect. There are 10,000 school boards in the nation with over 50,000 school board members. These school board members are the only elected leaders with a singular focus on well-being and future success of children. We can empower them to speak up for climate action and climate justice! This will help build public will to enact science-based climate policies which will protect current and future students. 

The above button has a link to a Google form individual school board members can use to go on record stating that climate change is a children's issue and encouraging elected leaders at all levels (local, state, and national) to speak up for climate action and to take measures to reduce greenhouse gases in order to protect current and future students. 

While we encourage school boards to discuss and pass climate action or climate justice resolutions as a whole board, there can be multiple reasons for school board members to speak up as individual elected leaders. Here are 4 reasons school board members may wish to speak up as individuals:

1. Districts in Crisis: Some school districts may currently be in crisis (budget, contract impasse, or natural disaster). For school districts in crisis, school boards may need to focus their collective time and energy on dealing with the crisis. In these cases, it may be more appropriate for individual school board members to speak up for climate action and engage the entire board in formal discussion of a climate change resolution after the school district crisis is resolved. 
2. School Boards Not Yet Ready to Engage Publicly with Climate Change: Not all school board members may yet be ready for public discussion or engagement with the issue of climate justice. It is a complex issue and it is tied to deeply-held senses of identity, responsibility, religion, cultural and social affiliation, justice, and empowerment. For many people, perceptual filters related to self-identity and social affiliation play a larger role in knowledge of and attitudes about climate change than does mainstream scientific knowledge or science-based policy prescriptions. If a high percentage of school board members on a school board might react negatively to an effort to discuss and engage with the issue of climate justice publicly, then it may make sense to defer such discussions until a greater number of school boards have established a precedent of speaking up for climate action. Currently, speaking up for climate action is not yet the norm, but we hope to make it so with this campaign. Individual school board members on school boards that may have a complex reaction to the issue of climate justice do not have to be silent on the matter. By signing this form as an individual school board member, you can help establish the norm that school board members, as elected leaders, can and do speak up for climate action in order to protect current and future students. 
3. Board Members Eager and Ready for Quick Action: There are many great reasons for school boards to take their time and carefully consider climate justice or climate change resolutions. The process of studying the issue, consulting stakeholders, and building support/consensus can take months. Even on school boards where there will likely be enthusiasm and consensus for passing school board climate justice resolutions, the resolution process can take months. Some individual school board members are so excited to have the opportunity to speak up for climate action that they do not want to wait until a resolution makes it's way through the entire resolution process. 
4. Add momentum to our campaign and help us reach our Earth Day 2018 goal: We have set an ambitious goal of getting 100 school board members to speak up for climate action by Earth Day 2018 (4.22.18). Since all 5 Sebastopol Union School District board members voted for their Climate Change Resolution, we only 95 school board members left to go!

Thanks for reading and please spread the word.

On Monday, December 4th Sebastopol Union School Board unanimously passed the Sebastopol Union School District's Climate Change Resolution. This may be one of the strongest climate change resolutions ever passed by a public school board in the nation. (If you know of others, please contact us, so we can add it to our database). Thank you SUSD School Board (especially Trustees Renata Brilliger and Lawrence Jaffe) for setting this important and courageous precedent! By speaking up for climate action you will help protect current and future students. We expect your precedent will empower school board members across the country to join you in speaking up for climate action. As the only elected leaders with a singular focus on the well-being and future success of children, the voices of school board members are especially important regarding climate action. 

Schools for Climate Action members initially proposed an SUSD Climate Resolution in July. Youth-adult teams held 3 meetings with individual school board members. A total of 4 youth members spoke at two different SUSD board meetings. SUSD Trustees Renata Brilliger and Lawrence Jaffe revised the initial draft several times. Thank you SUSD Board Members for honoring the voices of young people as they develop the organizing skills they will need to ensure our country implements science-based climate policies at all levels (local-state-national). 

Please join our Schools for Climate Action campaign if you want to start a youth-adult team in your district to empower school boards to speak up for climate action.