Sustainability at PPS

Welcome back to school, sustainability and climate justice friends and allies! We are so excited to be back to our regularly scheduled programming – a monthly PPS Sustainability and Climate Justice newsletter where you will find school sustainability stories, updates about goings-on at the district, opportunities for students, teachers, and community, and much more.

It’s an especially important time for climate work at PPS. In March 2022, the PPS School Board passed the Climate Crisis Response, Climate Justice and Sustainable Practices Policy. The policy outlines three main goals for PPS:

• Reduce Environmental Impact and Costs

• Improve Health and Wellness

• Provide Effective Environmental and Sustainability Education

Accomplishing these goals requires doing a huge variety of work: reducing food waste, planting more trees, replacing old, inefficient heating systems, adding solar panels, developing climate curriculum, training teachers, electrifying our buses, and so much more. A lot of this work is already in motion! Other parts of it are still in their planning phases. Some parts of this work originate at the central office. And other parts of it happen at schools. This work truly takes the effort of the entire PPS village.

As the year goes on, we’ll use this as a platform to update the community on Climate Policy actions. (Although the official place to follow CCRP work is through the Climate Crisis Response Committee’s public meetings.)

In this space you’ll also hear about some of the amazing work happening in schools, classrooms, and schoolyards, student and teacher learning and leadership opportunities, plus climate facts, partner highlights, and more. Want to see something specific? Let us know at sustainability@pps.net.

So where do things stand with the CCRP?

PPS has identified 5 main priorities for the year:

1. Working with PAE Consulting to develop a decarbonization road map for the district. This “road map” will help PPS understand how to effectively allocate resources and prioritize projects over the next 20 years by answering the question: “in what order should PPS implement GHG emissions reductions measures to give us the best chance of meeting our emissions goals, given financial, industry, and facility constraints, while considering historic inequities in the distribution of resources across PPS?”

2. With help from partners, go through a student and community engagement design process that will set us up to have more open, consistent, and collaborative conversations with our students, staff, and community as this work progresses.

3. Design a green schoolyard implementation plan, with a focus on priority schools, that will help PPS advance more outdoor learning and garden education, as well as outdoor spaces that improve student health and wellness, bring shade and community space to neighborhoods, and foster a sense of environmental stewardship.

4. Support teachers in being on-the-ground leaders in climate projects and programming through the School Sustainability Champions network. Interested in being part of the network? You can join anytime by clicking here.

5. Continuing work on to reduce energy consumption today through energy efficiency measures, school modernizations, upgrading mechanical systems, and transition to electric buses.

In addition, out team plans to continue to build and develop the amazing community partnerships that already exist at PPS. Working with organizations like Grow Portland, Growing Gardens, Eco-School Network, SAGE, the City of Portland, and so many more enables all this work to truly blossom.

Lastly, we are working to improve our public-facing CCRP communication and resources. Next month’s newsletter will officially launch our brand new PPS Climate Justice and Sustainability webpages. In addition, we are working on tools to help the PPS community track CCRP progress through interactive maps and data dashboards!

School might have been out, but PPS climate work went on. Here are some things you might have missed over the summer.

Since June, the Portland community has come together to support over 70 Community Care stewardship events on school grounds. Volunteers work together to weed, prune, and pick-up litter so schoolyards are clean and welcoming for play and outdoor learning.

You can host a clean-up event any time throughout the year! Reach out to communitycare@pps.net for help.

In Back-to-School August events, schools recruited members of the neighborhood to ‘beautify’ school grounds before students and teachers returned. The results are outstanding! Whether you mulched, picked up trash, or weeded in the school garden, your participation created a significant positive impact on our local school and environment! Thank you for all of your hard work and care!

For these August events to come together, PPS provided over $50,000 in mulch and over $8,900 in custodians’ time so that there was water and restroom access for volunteers. Thank you to our partners in Republic Waste Services who donated waste services and Home Depot who donated 700 yard debris collection bags.

PPS was able to GROW our stewardship efforts with the help of two key partner organizations this summer. Through a new partnership with SOLVE Oregon, over 15 Title IA schools had access to event signs, gloves, litter grabbing sticks, waste bags, loppers, and more for their clean-up events! Schoolyard trees were also cared for in part by the Urban Forestry Youth Conservation Crew (YCC)!

Green Lents is the leading community partner in the transformation of Lent Elementary School’s schoolyard. They kicked-off their multiple projects with the new Butterfly Garden area by installing an accessible path, preparing the swales and site, and finalizing the plant design to be planted collaboratively with the students in October!

For this project, Green Lents has wonderful partners in the Blueprint Earth LLC, Lents Youth Initiative, Ash Creek Forestry, and the funders: City of Portland, Oregon Community Foundation and Concordia Foundation.

*All photo credits go to Green Lents

Portland Public Schools, in collaboration with CLEAR Environmental, hosted 30 PPS teachers from all subjects and grades for a 2 day Professional Development training about climate justice, climate action, and Portland's history of environmental injustice.

Teachers discussed ways where climate issues already show up in the PPS curriculum and where we might include it to enhance existing units of study.

Over the 2 days, facilitators and teachers collaborated to create this growing and dynamic resource space for educators, administrators, and community to share and learn about climate justice teaching in our schools. These pages contain teaching resources, community resources for students and families, and much more.

Check out the page here to find the resources that fit your needs!

In August, PPS partnered with Lewis & Clark College to host a 3 day training on Becoming a Community Climate Leader.

In the inaugural cohort, 6 students from high school and college joined to discuss permaculture principles, Adrian Marie Brown's Emergent Strategy, ways to lead and organize climate projects in their schools, and how to work through the emotions of climate anxiety. Students made art, cultivated mushrooms, and more.

PPS hopes to repeat the training for more cohorts each year and at multiple schools. A huge thank you to the sustainability leaders at Lewis and Clark for obtaining the grant that made this possible and spearheading the work to create this amazing program.

With over 4 million meals served, Nutrition Services had a fantastic 22-23 school year providing students with nutritious school meals! Students were able to enjoy delicious foods like whole-grain yakisoba, winter squash, kimchi, rockfish, and more. Tofu was even able to be offered for the first time at PPS as part of Earth Week 2023!

Did you know that over 32% of Nutrition Services food purchases come from local farmers and producers? Nutrition Services celebrates many of these partnerships and locally grown foods through their Harvest of the Month Program, which highlights a local vegetable or fruit in the cafeteria for students to try and enjoy each month.

September’s Harvest of the Month is watermelon from Pollock and Son in Hermiston, Oregon. Nutrition Services and Pollock and Son have been in partnership since 2006, bringing delicious, locally grown watermelons to PPS students. Watermelon is a great source of potassium, vitamins A and C, and other essential nutrients.

Reducing waste in PPS hallways is a team effort. If you are a student, teacher, custodian, or principal, you can help by printing these signs and posting them in your waste bin area for food scraps, recycling, and landfill waste.

At PPS, recycling is commingled meaning all types of recycling (paper products, plastic tubs, plastic bottles, cardboard, and aluminum cans) can be put into the same recycling bin, except glass.

Food scrap collection is food only! All Portland Public School kitchens are required to properly collect and dispose of food scraps. Currently, cafeteria food scrap collection, otherwise referred to as "front of house" or "student-side" food scrap collection, is an opt-in program. Numerous PPS schools currently participate in front of house food scrap collection! If you want to start that at your school, we can help. Email us at sustainability@pps.net.

PPS is recruiting two new student members for the Climate Crisis Response Committee (CCRC)!

Student CCRC members will have the opportunity to share their voice, leadership, and perspective on PPS climate change priorities and actions. No prior experience in climate leadership is required, just a passion to make change.

You can apply to the CCRC here. Applications are due by Friday, September 15th.

Please reach out to climatejustice@pps.net for questions or go to www.pps.net.com/climatejustice to learn more.

Paid internship for high school students - Become a “Regional Leader” in the Our Future student climate leadership network!

Join Our Future, a statewide network of high school students involved in making positive change related to our environment, climate action, racial equity and social justice. This is a paid internship and includes a stipend of up to $1,000 for students who fulfill the requirements of the internship throughout the school year. This is a great way to meet with other students across the state, and prepare yourself for college or careers. Participation requires approximately 2-4 hours per week (depending on the level of involvement you choose) to attend meetings and workshops, and to complete projects.

Some Regional Leader activities include: Develop and implement projects with other Regional Leaders across the state; fundraising; outreach and marketing; and collaborating with various organizations throughout Oregon.

Interested? Please fill out the application ASAP. We will contact you to let you know we’ve received your application.

Apply now: https://forms.gle/A59txTAdSwk26K9c7

Check out our website: ourfutureoregon.org

Email any questions you have to: info@ourfutureoregon.org

Native and Indigenous communities, including Columbia River tribal members, Mayan, Aztec/Mexica and Purepecha members, are leading a Water Ceremony! Leaders and attendees will honor the waters, our ancestors and mother earth through ceremonial singing, drumming, dancing and prayer. All are welcome.

“The purpose of this ceremony is to help heal the spirits of the river water and the beings that live there” - Atwai Art.

If you have questions, accessibility needs, or would like to volunteer, email contact@phccoalition.org.

When: Saturday, Sept. 9, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Where: Cathedral Park