Published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Solving the climate crisis is not possible without engaging elementary and secondary educators on multiple fronts — starting with a focus on the buildings themselves. Schools make up the second largest area of public infrastructure in the nation, after highways. While a plan to include schools in the recent federal infrastructure bill was dropped as part of efforts to win votes, school districts still have significant resources for maintenance and construction that could be used to develop environmentally friendly school buildings.
Philanthropy might provide planning grants to school districts to support climate-resilience projects like green schoolyards to better manage water surges during flooding or energy storage to ensure schools have power during outages. Additionally, philanthropic support is needed in school districts such as Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Salt Lake City, that have passed clean-energy resolutions. These districts need assistance from nonprofits like New Buildings Institute, which can help them develop carbon-neutral school buildings.