Community members testified in favor of the Climate Friendly Public Schools initiative at the Portland City Council meeting on April 25, explaining how PCEF investments will lower greenhouse gas emissions while saving students from sweltering classrooms in summer, bursting water pipes in winter, and intensifying bouts of wildfire smoke. The council will vote on the initiative on May 8.
“How are students expected to focus in 90-degree classrooms?” asked Lincoln High School senior Chloe Gilmore, a youth climate organizer, who described dripping with sweat and struggling to learn during a heat wave two years ago. “How are students expected to succeed in polluted air and extreme temperatures?”
Aging infrastructure in need of critical retrofits
Portland has about 70,000 K-12 students attending public schools operated by seven districts including Portland Public Schools (PPS). School assets – buildings, land, and vehicles – offer huge opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve climate resilience while promoting learning, said City Commissioner Carmen Rubio. The PCEF investment is expected to cut up to 24,000 metric tons of lifetime carbon dioxide emissions in schools.
Within PPS, potential climate mitigation projects range from upgrading aging heating and cooling systems to replacing inefficient windows to transitioning to electric vehicles, Chief Operating Officer Dan Jung said. PPS also plans to green playgrounds at schools within the city’s urban heat zones.
“By depaving and planting trees and other green infrastructure, we will both decrease temperatures and improve the learning environment for our children,” Jung said.
PCEF funding will cool underinvested classrooms in the summer, warm them up in winter
PCEF, passed by Portland voters in 2018, taxes large retailers to fund projects that address climate change for all Portlanders, particularly the city’s most vulnerable. PCEF’s Climate Friendly Public Schools initiative targets schools where over 50% of students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. District allocations were determined by a series of weighted factors including enrollment percentages of students of color.
Each district will pitch projects that best serve its needs; PCEF staff will review them to make sure they meet the plan’s goals. PCEF also will provide extra funding for student-led climate projects.
The targeted strategy makes sense because schools with more resources and stable leadership are in a better position to advocate for climate retrofits, said PPS parent Noelle Studer-Spevak, a volunteer with Families for Climate. For others, it takes significant outside support to shade play areas and upgrade classrooms, she said.
Kids “want and deserve shade, engaging play spaces and a reasonable temperature range that supports learning so they can get a great start on a bright future,” Studer-Spevak said. “To me, this partnership illustrates the power of PCEF to reach across lines and reverse historic inequities rooted in redlining and underinvestment.”
Learn more about PCEF’s Climate Friendly School initiative.