Hi All,

My name is Park Guthrie. I recently joined NAAEE but I've been a classroom and outdoor educator for 20+ years. I currently teach self-contained 6th grade at Salmon Creek Charter School in Sonoma County, CA.

I'm hoping to engage you in the Schools for Climate Action campaign (link below). This is a non-partisan, grassroots campaign started by students, teachers, and parents in Sonoma County, CA.

Our mission is to empower K-12 educators, school boards, and student leaders to speak up for climate action in order to protect current and future generations of students. We're focusing mostly on empowering school boards to start.

We just chalked up our first victory! Thanks to advocacy from our youth-adult team, our local school district, Sebastopol Union School District, just passed this Climate Change Resolution. It may be the strongest statement on climate change by any public school board in the nation. We are hoping many other school districts will follow their lead.

We need your help getting this campaign to snowball. Every school district which speaks up makes it easier for subsequent districts to go on record officially speaking up for climate action to protect children and future generations. With just a little outreach and advocacy, your local school district could be next! There are 10,000 school boards in the country and if just a small percentage of them passed climate change resolutions, it would build significant public will for science-based climate policies which protect young people and future generations.

Citizens Climate Lobby will be using these school board climate change resolutions to help demonstrate to members of Congress that their constituents, and the American people, want bipartisan action on climate change. Citizens Climate Lobby has a successful record of moving members of Congress in both parties up the ladder of engagement with and action on climate change. Citizen's Climate Lobby has helped create the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus which now has 31 Republican and 31 Democratic members of Congress.

Would you please consider:

1. Emailing news of the SUSD Climate Change Resolution to your school board members, teachers, teacher's unions, and school administrators. Ask them to consider discussing and passing a climate change resolution similar to SUSD's (see link below);

2. Spreading the word and signing up for our email database on our website. We are putting together a series of webinars (link below) to support youth-adult teams working on climate change resolutions in their own districts. You can also visit us on Facebook or Twitter.

3. Keep us posted. Please consider cc'ing me whenever you do outreach emails. That way we can track efforts. Also, if your school district, teacher's union, or student council has passed resolutions on climate justice or climate action, please let me know. We're compiling lists and resources on our website and would love to post examples of from districts across the country.

We believe that advocacy and organizing are vital stewardship skills in the era of climate change. Students can learn these skills while in engaging in real-world organizing and advocacy for national science-based climate policies. We don't have any time to spare!

Thanks for reading and please email me at park.guthrie.jr@gmail.com if you have any questions or want more information.

Thanks for supporting great environmental education!

Cheers,
Park