“We need to teach students how to make the change...” Dreams and realities of climate and sustainability action in Seattle Public Schools

Abstract

Today’s K-12 students face a future more uncertain and perilous than any living generation has faced. Climate change is no longer abstract; human activity has already caused around 1.1-1.2℃ of warming, disrupting human lives and livelihoods and threatening the balance of life as a whole on the planet (IPCC, 2018). Continuing with ‘business as usual’ will lock in a future of devastating droughts, floods, winds, storms, heat, biodiversity collapse, food crop failures, freshwater shortages, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and social instability for today’s youth (Acton & Saxe, 2020; IPCC, 2018; IPCC, 2021). Indeed, the newest climate change assessment report details that unless immediate and extensive actions are taken, the disruption to the lives of our youth will be extreme (IPCC, 2021). K-12 public school districts are a set of governmental organizations that have great, mostly unrealized, power to respond to the climate crisis. School districts exist to prepare young people for the future, and thus have special moral obligations to protect that future by reducing their environmental footprint to avoid the most catastrophic climate change scenarios, and to educate today’s young people to better care for the ecosystems that support human life. Furthermore, K-12 school districts currently control the nation’s largest public transportation fleet, nearly half a million diesel buses, and emit the equivalent of 18 coal-fired power plants annually -- and all of these emissions are within the public span of control, which “is critical in responding swiftly to the climate emergency” (New Buildings Institute, 2021). Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has taken some action, especially regarding facilities, but must do more; its greatest areas for growth are in curriculum and operations. SPS has an especially strong obligation to act considering its stated commitment to racial justice. Students of color furthest from educational justice and their families experience the impacts of climate change first and worst. This study analyzed the current state of climate and sustainability action in Seattle Public Schools, and identified systems characteristics that support implementation, especially implementation that leads to institutionalized cultural norms. As comparison cases, the study also examined the state of racial equity action in Seattle Public Schools, and the state of climate and sustainability action in San Francisco Unified School District. Based on these analyses, specific actions are recommended to advance climate and sustainability action in Seattle Public Schools.