Glossary of Indicators

The glossary includes explanations of the key indicators used to identify and explore scale, equity, progress on environmental and climate action efforts taking place within districts and schools, and broader context factors such as environmental and climate action within county and municipal jurisdictions.

For the current date ranges and sources of the indicators or to view the indictors for specific districts, please visit the District Data Validation Page. Also view the full glossary of detailed definitions here.

Overview Video for the Glossary

Demographic and Equity Indicators

This data initiative draws on statewide database systems that provide common demographics and equity indicator data (i.e. geographical location, enrollment size, free/reduced priced meals, english language acquisition, ethnicity, etc.). The initiative also includes indicators related to environmental injustice.

Overview Video for the Demographic and Equity Indicators

TK-12 DEMOGRAPHIC AND EQUITY INDICATORS: This data initiative draws on statewide database systems that provide data related to demographics and equity indicators; for example:

Basic demographic: geographical location, district type, grade level served, # of schools, enrollment size
Equity related demographics: unduplicated pupil count of free/reduced priced meals, English learners, and foster youth; English language acquisition status, ethnicity, pupil count receiving special education services, expense of education per ADA, number of title 1 schools, etc.

The data for these indicators comes from a number of sources - including but not limited to the following examples: California School Directory, CDE Cumulative Enrollment Data, SARC Data Files, CALPADS UPC Source File, EdData, CDE Title 1 Part A LEA Allocation Data, CDE Lead Regions, CA County Superintendent Regions, etc.

ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE INDICATOR - POLLUTION BURDEN: CalEnviroScreen is a mapping tool that helps identify California communities that are most affected by many sources of pollution and where people are often especially vulnerable to pollution's effects. On the CalEnviroScreen map, the results for each indicator, like pollution burden, range from 0-100 and represent the percentile ranking of the census tract in which each school is located relative to all other census tracts across California. Pollution burden number/rank is derived from indicators such as exposure risk to diesel fumes, traffic, ozone, toxic releases, and the rates of lead in housing. The pollution burden percentile rating indicates the aggregate rating of the particular census tract across all indicators compared to the average in the state, with additional factors such as groundwater threats, hazardous waste, asthma rates, unemployment, and housing burden incorporated into the overall percentile measurement.

This data initiative uses pollution burden as an important equity indicator for understanding to what degree any given community is experiencing environmental injustice.
To learn more about pollution burden, visit CalEnviroScreen.

Indicators of Progress on Environmental and Climate Action

In order to more easily identify and communicate trends in the environmental literacy, sustainability, and/or climate action investments made by the nearly 1,000 public (non-charter) school districts across the state of California, this data initiative developed a District Environmental and Climate Action Indicator Tracking System (see image below and explore data for this tracking system on the Indicators for Progress Page). The Tracking System is based on a number of indicators that seek to demonstrate to what extent a school district has committed to environmental and climate action and begun to make progress on implementation across the campus facilities (buildings and grounds) and operations, curriculum, and community and culture. This section includes a number of detailed definitions for some of the terms used in the Tracking System - more terms can be found in the full glossary here.

Overview Video for the Indicators for Environmental and Climate Action

ENVIRONMENTAL-RELATED SCHOOL BOARD POLICIES: A local education agency’s board of trustees can encourage an overall institutional culture of sustainability through board policies, resolutions, and other actions that make commitments to environmental literacy and efforts to build sustainable and climate-ready schools.

This data initiative is collecting data on local school board policies - for example:
- - This data initiative tracks which school districts have adopted the ten sample board policies and regulations that have been developed by the California School Boards Association (CSBA) to help public school boards address their local environmental issues.
  - This data initiative also seeks to track which school districts have developed customized resolutions, policies, and regulations.
To learn more about school boards and environmental policies, visit:
- - California School Boards Association (CSBA) Climate Change Task Force
  - School Board Sustainability Resolutions and Policies Overview

DISTRICT-WIDE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVE: A district-wide initiative that focuses on environmental and climate action in schools means that the district is prioritizing these efforts and building structures that institutionalize this prioritization with staffing, committees, and dedicated time and resources. Sometimes an environmental-related initiative will take a whole systems approach, including efforts across different subsystems, such as campus facilities (buildings and grounds) and operations, curriculum, and community and culture, and other times these initiatives will just focus on one or more of these sub-systems.

This data initiative includes research on which districts have district-wide environmental literacy and sustainability initiatives that are either comprehensive or focused on subsystem elements such as campus, curriculum, or community and culture.
To learn more about how to launch and sustain a successful district-wide sustainability initiatives visit: District-Wide Sustainability Initiative Support Resources.

ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY AND SUSTAINABILITY STAFF: Research shows that environmental and climate literacy and efforts to build sustainable and climate-resilient schools are most effective when they are coordinated or directed by a well-compensated, full-time employee. When done with a whole systems mindset, this staff will be responsible for supporting the development and implementation of district-wide, whole school integration of environmental sustainability and climate resiliency across the campus facilities (buildings and grounds) and operations, curriculum, and community and culture. However, districts may try different approaches to structuring the role including part-time responsibilities, shared responsibilities across a team, job sharing between multiple agencies, and also roles that are more specific to one aspect of sustainability or environmental literacy (e.g., energy manager, zero waste specialist, environmental literacy specialist, garden coordinator, etc.).

This data initiative is examining data related to the extent to which a district has invested in staff positions at the district level that oversee either a broad environmental literacy and sustainability effort or have specific roles and responsibilities related directly to environmental literacy and sustainability within the campus, curriculum, and community and culture.
To learn more about sustainability staff positions, visit District Sustainability Coordinator Job Description Example, Site Level Sustainability Coordinator Job Description Example, or Sustainability Project Management Specialist.

GREEN RIBBON SCHOOLS: The Green Ribbon Schools program (ED-GRS) is a recognition award started by the US Department of Education in 2011 for schools that achieve excellence in resource efficiency, health and wellness, and environmental and sustainability education. Each year the California Department of Education (CDE) may nominate up to five school communities for federal recognition. To encourage submissions, California started a state-wide recognition program in 2014, with four different achievement levels: bronze, silver, gold, and green achiever. This indicator has been selected because the Green Ribbon Schools program is the only federally and state-recognized program that provides criteria for what qualifies as a “Green” TK–12 school. Recognition in this program means that a school or district has completed a baseline assessment of current environmental literacy and sustainability efforts and has made progress towards using a whole systems approach (campus, curriculum, and community and culture).

This data initiative includes Green Ribbon data for California since 2014.
To learn more about Green Ribbon, visit CDE California Green Ribbon Selectee page and Ten Strands Green Ribbon Data Overview and Analysis.

BOND MEASURES: According to the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools, California’s K–12 facility inventory is large (totaling 730 million square feet) and is aging. (Estimates show that 40 percent of the inventory is more than 50 years old.) School construction and maintenance are funded mainly by state and local bonds. This indicator focuses on local construction school bond measures which are used by schools and communities to finance major construction and renovations of school buildings and grounds. Bond measures that have been passed in recent years are subject to compliance on CALGreen sustainability construction and renovation codes.

This data initiative seeks to track which districts have passed bond measures since 2000 - to find this data visit EdData's Local Revenue Election Data for any county or district. Other source examples include Ballotpedia's School Bond Data.
To learn more about ballot measures and funding, visit Ed100: Parcel Taxes and Bonds Demystified and Ballot Measure Overview and Analysis for San Mateo County.

FACILITIES MASTER PLANS: A facilities master plan is a strategic document that provides a district with information on both existing facilities and the recommended renovations needed to support the health and safety of their campuses. This data point is useful in understanding readiness because CA schools are required to incorporate environmental sustainability and climate mitigation into construction and renovation. Therefore, if a district has a master plan, it is likely to have some level of buy-in for environmental sustainability as well.

This data initiative includes research on which districts have invested in a facilities master plan and, if they have, the most recent year for that plan.
To learn more about facilities, visit ED100 School Facilities, Division of State Architect's (DSA) Sustainability Plan Resources, and Facilities Master Plan Overview and Analysis for San Mateo County.

Broader Supportive Context Indicators at County and Municipal Levels

These indicators provide more of an understanding of whether or not any given school community is in a supportive or more prohibitive contextual scenario for taking environmental and climate action. It should be noted that this data initiative is still trying to understand whether or not these broader context factors have a causal or correlated relationship with environmental and climate action.

Overview Video for the Broader Context Indicators

COMMUNITY CHOICE AGGREGATION (CCA): A community choice aggregation (CCA), also known as government, municipal, or community energy aggregation (depending on the state), is a program that allows local governments to bid and choose an energy supplier for their communities. A CCA allows cities, counties and other qualifying governmental entities available within the service areas of investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to purchase and/or generate electricity for their residents and businesses. Typically the CCA procures clean energy, and the IOU delivers energy and maintains the grid. Most CCAs reinvest the earnings from their efforts back into the community in the form of new energy projects and programs that further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This data initiative provides baseline data on counties that do or do not have CCAs, as they can provide an opportunity for county offices of education (COEs), school districts, and school sites to work with their CCA to secure funding for programs that increase environmental literacy and sustainability and efforts to build climate-resilient TK–12.
To learn more about CCAs and their possible connection to schools, visit CA CCA Overview and Analysis for Sustainable and Climate Resilient Schools.

COUNTY AND CITY JURISDICTION ENVIRONMENTAL PLANS: City (municipal) and county governments use a number of different plans that outline how they will achieve long-term goals. In California, cities and counties are required by state law to have a general plan, which is a broad, long-range policy document that guides future development, conservation, and land-use. In order to achieve sustainability goals set in a general plan or mandated by law, a jurisdiction may adopt additional plans such as a sustainability plan, green infrastructure plan, bicycle and pedestrian master plan, climate action plan, climate adaptation plan, and local hazard and mitigation plan (LHMP).

This data initiative includes statistics on the inclusion of the environment in county and municipal jurisdiction plans to provide information on what the supportive context might be in any given CA region for plans related to the environment.
To learn more about different types of plans, visit Climate Action Plan Overview and Analysis for San Mateo County, Climate Adaptation Plans: EPA Climate Adaptation Plans; California Local Hazard and Mitigation Plan or California Climate Adaptation Plan, and U.S. Department of Education Climate Adaptation Plan (last updated September 2021).

COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION HIGH IMPACT ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY AND SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVE: County offices of education (COEs) support school districts in their county region on things that would be difficult or expensive to do alone, such as professional development programs, special programs for students (e.g., internships, concurrent enrollment at community colleges, service learning projects), and programs for students that are marginalized, in the court and probationary system, or special education. They also provide regulatory functions, craft regional partnerships, support family services, and lead high-impact initiatives. COEs that lead high-impact environmental literacy and sustainability initiatives implement programs and services that provide backbone support to districts and schools within the region to prioritize environmental literacy and sustainability across their campus, curriculum, and community and culture.

This data initiative includes self-reporting information from county offices of education that have participated in the CAELI COE Innovation Hub programs and efforts.
To learn more about COE-led environmental literacy and sustainability initiatives, visit the CAELI COE Innovation Hub Resources.

COUNTY/MUNICIPAL OFFICES AND DEPARTMENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY: Across the United States, county and municipal jurisdictional governments have begun to invest in offices and departments within their local government that are focused on issues related to sustainability and climate change. These offices and departments usually center around making the operations of public buildings as well as supporting efforts of the business and residential communities within the jurisdiction more sustainable and resilient to the effects of climate change.

This data initiative includes statistics on which CA county and municipal (largest fifty only) jurisdictions have an office of sustainability as part of the effort to convey supportive context information to local education agencies within these jurisdictions.

View Full Glossary of Detailed Definitions Here

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