A TOOLKIT FOR EDUCATORS: "GREEN SCHOOLS, NOT FOSSIL FUELS!"
Ideas for Action
The Big List of Action Ideas
Talk to at least 1 co-worker
See the “talking to your co-worker” part of toolkit for a simple guide to starting these important conversations
Wear green on the Friday of Earth Week with co-workers and students! Use it as a conversation starter to talk to a co-worker!
Wear matching stickers - this will help get conversations going and allow folks to see themselves acting collectively together in real time
Get a free mailing of ready-to-go stickers and download sign examples
Pass a resolution in your local for taking action together!
Here is a template to go off of, plus there are simple steps to introducing a resolution in your local and engaging leadership.
Organize a sign-making event and distribute them to educator leaders across your district. Take the names and numbers of leaders who took a sign(s) and follow up with them to confirm they gather their co-workers on Friday for a quick discussion of why we need green schools. Amplify online with photos for social media!
Show co-workers our video to get them interested and joined in on the week of action
Organize lunch-time (or, where possible, on-the-clock) discussions about the condition of your schools, climate disruption, and what workers can do.
See the “talking to your co-worker” part of toolkit for a simple guide to starting these important conversations
Hold events with health care workers in your school that feature trainings on dealing with the effects of air pollution, asbestos, lead, heat, and extreme weather events, etc.
Start a climate justice committee in your local and/or a climate caucus in your State-wide chapter and make them vehicles to build worker power and strategic action for victory
See our resources for starting a committee.
Hold union and/or community meetings to envision healthy, green school improvements
See resources on what green, healthy schools projects could look like and what federal money is available!
Put on a panel discussion for your union members to learn about federal climate funding as a means to modernizing, decarbonizing, and detoxifying schools.
Reach out to parents who could speak, students, educators of all job classifications in your union or district, and also other local unions that would benefit from increased jobs from this work (e.g., building trades unions)
Teach lessons on climate and environmental justice to your students during the week of Earth Day!
See ECAN resources with lesson examples and models
Create a campaign to demand the State develop standards for teaching these issues across curriculum
See ECAN resources with curriculum examples
Build sustained connection with other educator union workers beyond your individual school, expanding in your district, town, and State - make plans to coordinate, build strategic campaigns, and leverage collective action!
Join the national AFT Climate Caucus and/or the NEA Ecology Caucus - give these caucuses member power and ask other union educators in your local, district, and State to join them as well
Bring a fellow educator to an ECAN meeting
See the “talking to your co-worker” part of this toolkit for a simple guide to starting these important conversations
Consult community groups and students to design climate investment demands in your next union contract bargaining
Create a campaign to win divestment of your union pensions funds from money-losing fossil fuels and reinvestment into the money-making clean energy economy
See resources for divestment and reinvestment guidance
Connect to, campaign with, and establish ongoing coordination with youth and student-led movements
See resources for connecting with youth and students
Plan a rally at your school or administration (or the homes of key decision-makers) for green schools and a end to fossil fuels!
Make sure to amplify with your fellow workers, students, and communities online!
Use these hashtags, images, and messages in coordination with others around the country
Escalate your education and actions in power through the week leading up to Earth Day
E.g. building up collective action to “School Stay-ins”:
A “Stay-in” would be an action right in your workplace. It could be halting work for a time to have a meeting or discussion. Or it could be right before or after work or during a mealtime break. Use it as an opportunity to educate your co-workers and students and organize for the future.
If you need support thinking about how to begin or implement
any of these action ideas and make them right for you, then
please contact ECAN for support!
Is your school on the fenceline of pollution?
Is your school in a community next to a polluting industry or factory, or a community experiencing some kind of environmental injustice?
Connect with local groups and community members who are already working to address this environmental pollution, and take action together.
See the example of a community fight against a polluting metal shredder plant that was allowed by city officials to relocate its operations to a disadvantaged community in Chicago. Two teachers were fired for standing with environmental groups against the relocation decision, but then community outrage and mobilization forced the district to rehire them! This is educator and community solidarity in action.
Connect with workers who labor at the nearby polluting industry and see if they are experiencing hardships at work, the same pollution as the surrounding community, or other negative health or equity issues on the job. Offer support and collaboration based on the shared interests in cleaning up this pollution and good wages and working conditions. They may have much more in common with you than folks realize!
Contact ECAN for support taking any of these steps and for connecting with local environmental and community groups!
Your Goals, Your Strategies
See some examples union educators made in ECAN meetings:
Goal: Move the resolution in our locals to mobilize members to action on Earth Day 2024 (use this template!)
Strategy: Get key co-worker rank and file leaders on board and a critical mass that can get your local union leadership involved
Goal: Demand districts implement a just climate action plan that secures federal public investment in modern, green, healthy, fully-resourced public schools
Strategy: Create a sense of going on offense with fellow educators - fighting against toxic schools, climate pollution, and disinvestment; and fighting for modern, healthy, green schools, and robust public investment.
Strategy: Grow & strengthen organizing ties with youth and student climate mobilizations by coordinating with them on Earth Day and beyond.
Goal: plug union educators into the new national caucuses: the AFT Climate Caucus and the NEA Ecology Caucuses
Strategy: political education in your union about how building co-worker collective power is necessary to win, and showing the potential of well-organized caucuses to be effective
Strategy: Make sure at least one union educator from your local is plugged into ECAN so that educators can coordinate nationwide, between NEA and AFT, and be a source of support for each other wherever they are at.
Who is the audience I am trying to get onboard?
Your fellow educators, students, youth and community groups who can join you in sustained cooperation and support each others’ organizing
Your union leadership, if your goal is to demonstrate the importance of these issues.
Who is the target of our action(s)?
Your school district administration
Your school board
Your elected officials
Can I get in trouble for acting?
The people of the United States have the Constitutional right to freedom of speech and assembly.
Different individuals have different abilities to take risks. Try to organize a range of activities that allow everyone to participate while making the strongest possible statement.
