First Name: | Nik |
---|---|
Last Name: | Kaestner |
Email Address: | kaestnern@sfusd.edu |
Affiliation | SF Unified School District |
Subject | Schools Need To Be Included in Plan |
Comment |
SFUSD has 55K students, 54% of which are on the federal free-and-reduced lunch program, and over 120 school sites. Our staff and students use and dispose of tons of food and supplies each day. Our buildings consumer 1,5M therms of gas, 32,5M kWh of electricity, and 125,000 CCF of water each year. In addition to our 25 school buses, parents are shuttling their kids to school via car, criss crossing our city due to the choice assignment system and generating 20-25% of the morning traffic. Our vast expanses of blacktop soak up the sun and reject stormwater instead of doing exactly the opposite. Thankfully, the citizens and government in SF provide my Sustainability Office with the resources and support to make a difference: 1. Our Department of the Environment pays for my position, provides in-class environmental education, and works with schools to achieve our phenomenal 65% diversion rate. 2. Our public utilities commission (SFPUC) pays for a school conservation manager, bottle filling stations, rooftop solar projects, and grants for stormwater management. 3. Our municipal transit agency (SFMTA) is providing us with a transportation planner this year to help us reduce our 48% student drive-alone rate. But what do other districts do with less funding and support at their disposal? How can the State expect to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without educating the future (and current) users of energy? How can the investment plan be silent on ways to reduce energy in the largest school system in the country? That's why I'm calling on the CARB investment plan to beef up its funding for school-based projects that reduce energy usage while modeling conservation for students and the school community. Schools are a perfect place to reach disadvantaged citizens and to implement integrated projects that achieve benefits beyond GHG reductions: - If you're planting trees, why not provide shade for students at lunch? - If you're cleaning up tailpipe emissions, why not remove the carbon black from school buses that has such health impacts on poor communities? - If you're upgrading buildings, why not start with schools so that our budget-starved school systems can spend money on supplies and programs instead of utilities. Prop 39 has been a great catalyst for school energy projects but its SIR requirements have encouraged schools to cherry-pick the low-hanging fruit that will make future retrofits really expensive. Any funding mechanism you develop needs to encourage deep retrofits over simple fixes so that we truly keep our 2030 goals in mind. |
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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted: 2015-08-12 16:43:31 |
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