California to invest $150 million in schoolyard greening!
/This was an amazing week for California’s green schoolyards—and children! We are thrilled that the state budget now includes an unprecedented investment of $150 million over the next two years to create green schoolyards and schoolyard forests at K-12 schools across the state. This funding is vitally important in a state with an increasingly hot climate and very little shade on school grounds. We applaud the work of Governor Newsom, the California Legislature, state agencies, non-profit partners, and all Californians who supported and worked for this historic and crucial investment in the health and happiness of millions of California’s school-aged children.
To celebrate this historic milestone for schoolyard greening, our CEO Sharon Danks traveled to Los Angeles on September 8th to attend a press conference and participate in a discussion with California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Deputy Secretary Andrea Ambriz, CAL FIRE’s State Urban Forester Walter Passmore, and local community stakeholders.
LEFT TO RIGHT: DEPUTY SECRETARY ANDREA AMBRIZ (CNRA), Dr. Bevin Ashenmiller (Occidental College), SHARON DANKS (Green Schoolyards America), Secretary WADE CROWFOOT (CNRA)
“We have to do more to protect our communities from the impact of climate change. Schoolyard greening projects will ensure that kids are safe from increasing temperatures. …In the past, they’ve had limited funding. Thanks to legislative leadership, we are going to vastly scale up those resources. In our agency, we’re committed to matching those increased resources with a renewed intensity of focus to accelerate projects, to reduce barriers, to reduce hoops to jump through.”
Photograph of PRESS CONFERENCE ATTENDEES, September 8, 2022.
Green Schoolyards America is committed to continuing our work with our partners—in California and across the United States—to support schoolyard greening investments, policies, and programs like this one that advance equity, climate resilience, and environmental literacy.
As the climate warms, children in California and across the country need systemic programs that accelerate the shift toward greener, cooler, shadier outdoor environments at school. To that end, Green Schoolyards America is collaborating with our California colleagues—Ten Strands, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), and the California Department of Education—to found the California Schoolyard Forest System℠. This initiative will work to increase tree canopy on public school grounds to shade and protect PK-12 students from extreme heat and rising temperatures due to climate change. Click here to learn more about the California Schoolyard Forest System and to express interest in joining us in this important work.
