[caption id="attachment_112027" align="alignleft" width="102" caption="Anna M. Clark"][/caption] Back to school!  Although it may feel like the heat wave will never end, autumn has officially begun for parents of school-age children.  A new academic year is full of high hopes and fresh possibilities – the perfect time to begin or recharge a green team on your child’s school campus. I’ve done plenty of green team development inside corporations with my consulting company EarthPeople, but schools are a different animal.  In some respects the difference is a good thing. Companies may be motivated to go green in order to save money on energy or enhance brand value among socially-conscious consumers. While the “business case” is a valid reason to implement a sustainability strategy, it doesn’t compare with protecting the health and well-being of children – the primary motivator for greening our schools. Since going through the process with my children’s school, a pre-K–8^th grade private school in Dallas, I’ve discovered that education isn’t just for the students.  St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic School has lot of highly engaged, dedicated parents and teachers.  Many of them already serve as volunteers.  As the green team leader, my job is to identify those people who are interested and willing to channel their commitment to our kids into a new committee – and then to work with them to educate our students, teachers, and parents about earth-friendly initiatives. In many cases, the green team’s work encompasses something that parents may already be interested in, such as promoting healthier eating.  In other cases, the process involves introducing an entirely new concept, such as our participation in the nationally-recognized community movement Green Halloween®.  Since I am a relatively new parent and sustainability is still new for our school, I’ve been leaning on my team members to help me understand the organizational culture so that we can set priorities that resonate with everyone. St. Bernard School has never had a green team before, so our task this year is to lay a foundation. So far I have been very pleased. Typically the response in any given organization would be about 5 percent engagement. We have at least that many parents on our team.  Clear communication before and after each meeting is crucial to maintaining momentum. We’ve held two meetings so far, which have resulted in a Green Team Overview, a working document that includes:

• Mission statement
• Vision
• Priorities for this academic year
• Resources
• Inspiration

[caption id="attachment_112029" align="alignright" width="203" caption="Parents often rally behind school food issues, changing the menu or adding a garden, such as this one at Scarsdale High School in NY."][/caption] I wasn’t sure if I was making it too formalized by adding this structure, but as parents began sharing their interests in joining the group, the need to forge a common purpose and objectives became apparent. As one of the moms said during our last meeting, “Some of the parents were asking me what the purpose of the ‘green team’ is.  I know why this important to me, but trying to explain what we do is another story.”  To help, we’ve documented our objectives and will be sharing them in a number of ways. Here’s what we are tackling for year one:

• Educate parents on the role of healthy eating in fighting disease and ensuring success in life for our children.
• Educate students, teachers, and parents about the connections between a healthy body and a healthy planet.
• Raise awareness among students about caring for the environment through recycling.
• Create and execute a plan for a school vegetable garden.
• Engage interested teachers and parents in the green team through transparency and knowledge-sharing.
• Empower teachers to reduce paper use and make other earth-friendly changes.
• Get a professional energy audit to find opportunities to increase efficiency.
• Cultivate a culture of conservation.

We are ambitious, but realistic. If we accomplish half our list we will have succeeded in giving our school a foundation for future accomplishments.  Of course, we know we cannot meet these goals without support from everyone – students, parents, and teachers - so in our next team meeting we’ll lay out a communications plan for the year that can help us reach all stakeholders. None of this would be possible without support from our school principal Tommie Balcom. Already, she has helped enormously by sharing her commitments to a healthy eating program in a recent newsletter. She has advocated for us among other parents, stating "St. Bernard Catholic School is most fortunate to have such a strong Green Team this year.  We hope to accomplish great things."  She’s offered to make space on our school’s new website for us as well, which we’ll address in our upcoming communications plan.  Such forward-thinking leadership is a key ingredient to success for any green team. Starting a green team in a public school can be more complex, as it is with any larger organization.  The place to start is with the principal and/or the PTA – preferably both.  With those in place, anything is possible! What school green teams may lack in funding, they make up for in commitment to a higher purpose.  With consistent dedication from green-team volunteers, our schools can become a catalyst for positive change within our communities.  More importantly, we will equip our kids with the capacity to become healthy citizens and responsible leaders for a better future. (Anna M. Clark is the president of EarthPeople, a sustainability consultancy in Dallas, and the author of Green, American Style.) Copyright © 2011 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

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