A school board meeting is an unusual Thursday night gathering spot for a group of high schoolers; the average age of meeting attendants is somewhere around 40 and the topics tend to run, well, dense. But on Feb. 6, nearly a dozen high school students from Durham Public Schools trickled into the boardroom — holding cardboard posters and sporting black and yellow “Sunrise Movement” t-shirts — ready to talk policy. Specifically, a “Green New Deal” for schools.
“We believe that we are working with the same purpose, to fight for a safe and bright future for DPS students,” Durham School of the Arts junior Sarah Rodrigues told the school board. “And we believe that in the face of the climate crisis, one of the largest issues humanity has ever faced, a Green New Deal is necessary for that promise for such futures.”
Rodrigues is a co-president of DSA’s Sunrise Movement hub, a chapter of a national organization that mobilizes young people to fight the climate crisis. Her journey towards environmental activism began just last year, when Rodrigues attended the DSA club fair and learned about Sunrise — though the club wasn’t what she had imagined it to be.
“I can say it wasn’t very active,” Rodrigues explained in an interview with The 9th Street Journal. “I think I probably went to, like, two meetings throughout the entirety of last year, and…the most I ever did was really make a poster about recycling.”
Since then, Rodrigues and co-president Avery O’Brien, a DSA junior, have revived the club with help from Shiva Rajbhandari, who leads Sunrise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I remember the first meeting we had after we had met Shiva…it was kind of like a ‘Forget everything we told you about what this club will be,’” Rodrigues said. “‘This is what we’re doing instead.’”
Since then, DSA’s Sunrise club has traded in recycling posters for policy resolutions, drafting a seven-page “Green New Deal” proposition for Durham Public Schools modeled on similar propositions used elsewhere in the country.
At last Thursday’s work session, Rodrigues took a night off from homework and memorizing lines for theater to urge the board to adopt her group’s resolutions alongside her peers from DSA, Riverside High School, and Duke University.
The students’ proposition urges the district to “take aggressive climate action.” Specifically, they want the board to make eight main commitments, including a district-wide climate disaster plan, a clean energy timeline, and incorporating climate literacy into DPS’ curriculum.
The proposition also calls on the district to “immediately cease all new construction of school facilities that do not run on 100% clean energy.” This past November, the district broke ground on construction for a controversial new DSA campus, which The 9th Street Journal found to be the most expensive public school construction project in the Triangle, and likely the state.
Current DSA students pointed to the new campus at Thursday’s meeting. Andrea Bueno, a DSA junior, said she was initially excited that the new DSA building could provide updated facilities for students. However, the energy usage plans for the new building changed her tune.
“But as I looked into that project one thing really stood out to me and that was the lack of provisions for clean energy,” Bueno said of plans for the new DSA campus. “We were made a promise of 80% clean and renewable energy by 2035 and 100% by 2050, yet the new building doesn’t seem to really include provisions that work towards that goal.”
Bueno was referring to a resolution adopted by the board in 2021 that pledged the district would “establish an action plan” to transition to 80% clean energy in schools by 2035 and 100% clean energy by 2050. The resolution also states that the board “shall direct its staff to include energy efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure in the design and planning of all new schools….”
District officials did not respond to The 9th Street Journal’s repeated requests to comment on the students’ concerns.
Board members did not address the students’ climate concerns at the meeting and have been hesitant to sign pledges vowing that they would work with Sunrise on a “Green New Deal” for schools. Carda-Auten is the only board member who has signed the pledge so far, Rodrigues said. Yet overall, Rodrigues said that her group has had positive experiences working with the Durham school board.
DSA Sunrise has met with board chair Millicent Rogers and board members Natalie Beyer and Jessica Carda-Auten. Carda-Auten and Joy Harrell Goff also attended the group’s “visioning session” meeting.
Environmental issues are described only in general terms in DPS’ 2023-2028 Strategic Plan. By 2028 the district aims to “provide healthy, safe, technologically current, and environmentally conscious facilities for 100 percent of DPS properties.” The strategic plan also says the district will “expand initiatives to increase the sustainability of district facilities and operations.”
The DPS students are ready for more urgent action, though, and are willing to make big demands to try and budge the board towards their resolutions.
“I mean, scientists have said that we have four more years to stop the climate crisis before it becomes completely irreversible, essentially,” Rodrigues said. “And so, I mean our strategy is to just throw it all out there and ask for crazy demands and see how far we can get.”
“Because at this point in time, settling is not really an option.”
Above: Members of DSA Sunrise are urging the school board to take action on its climate goals. From left: Lucia Harrington, Avery O’Brien, Owen Ambrose, Sarah Rodrigues and Aiden Mendoza. Photo by Abigail Bromberger — The 9th Street Journal
Lily Kempczinski
