Every day, millions of public school students, teachers, and staff work and learn in crumbling, unventilated buildings that swelter in summer. It's high time our children's schools and teachers received the respect and funding they deserve!

The Green New Deal for Public Schools will invest $1.4 trillion over ten years in America's K-12 public schools to begin the work of building carbon-free, climate resilient schools of tomorrow. That funding will create 1.3 million jobs per year and eliminate 78 million tons of carbon emissions annually, while also addressing decades of funding inequity, by hiring more teachers and staff, reducing class sizes, and expanding social service programming and curriculum development at high-need schools. These Resource Block Grants and expanded Title I and IDEA funding will help public schools be places where decades of systemic racism and opportunity gaps for Black and Latinx students are reversed through healthy, supportive infrastructure and resources.

Consider the impact on Houston-area schools:

Sylvia Garcia- Congressional District 29- appx. 201 schools full retrofit funding- 151,296 children living at 185% below poverty level, meaning nearly 65% of children live at or below poverty level;

Sheila Jackson Lee- Congressional District 18- appx. 150 schools full retrofit funding- 135,216 children living at 185% below poverty level, meaning nearly 64.4% of children live at or below poverty level;

Lizzie Fletcher- Congressional District 7- appx. 45 schools full retrofit funding- 77,590 children living at 185% below poverty level, meaning nearly 36.6% of children live at or below poverty level;

Al Green- Congressional District 9- appx. 130 schools full retrofit funding- 115,197 children living at 185% below poverty level, meaning nearly 56.3% of children in your congressional district live at or below poverty level.

We demand that our Houston-area Democratic Representatives- Sylvia Garcia, Sheila Jackson Lee, Lizzie Fletcher, Al Green- support increasing funding for public schools, by championing the Green New Deal for Public Schools and meet with community members to discuss their co-sponsoring of the bill.

Call your Representative’s office! Sign our petition letter and you will then be taken to our campaign page where you can look up your Representative, and use our script for the call.

We need all hands on deck in order to do it! Together, we can create the future our children deserve. Join us!

Statistics found at https://frac.org/maps/acs-poverty/tables/tab2-child-poverty-cd-2017.html