WS/FCS Board of Education passes sustainability resolution

Submitted Article

On Tuesday, Nov. 15, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools (WS/ FCS) Board of Education passed a resolution pledging to integrate environmental sustainability into school operations and curriculum. The resolution joins action taken by the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners’ 2019 pledge to transition to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050 and the City of Winston-Salem’s 2020 resolution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all efforts to improve sustainability throughout Forsyth County.

The resolution calls for integrating sustainability across the district. Features include working to make school facilities more energy-efficient, improving efforts to reduce landfill waste with recycling and compost programs, providing more opportunities to green school grounds with more sustainable learning landscapes, and working to engage students through integrated curriculum every step of the way.

WS/FCS consulted with Piedmont Environmental Alliance (PEA) to build the resolution.

WS/FCS Superintendent Tricia McManus and the district’s operations and facilities team, talked with district administrators, school board members, parents, and teachers to develop this resolution in an effort to show support for more coordination on local sustainability efforts.

WS/FCS Superintendent Tricia McManus said, “Our district has been committed to environmental sustainability, but only in small pockets. This is an important step in aligning and strengthening all of our efforts to build districtwide expectations and support around sustainability.”

Since 2015, PEA has provided free environmental education programs to local schools, with an emphasis on teaching en vironmental STEM con cepts like energy use and water conservation to un derserved students. The organization also helped launch a composting program at Speas Elementary and worked with the district to eliminate the use of throwaway Styrofoam lunch trays.

PEA Executive Director Jamie Maier said, “I am thankful that the board of education passed this resolution, which I see as critical to the county’s goal of transitioning to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050. The resolution promotes a sustainability mindset that will transform how schools operate. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions while saving the district money. Most importantly, it will engage students as effective stewards of the environment.” Maier says PEA is looking forward to working with administrators and teachers in implementing and expanding environmental programs across the district.

Innovative programs like this are sorely needed. WSSU’s Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM) has extensively studied WSTA and riders who use it to commute to work. Buses only run every hour, instead of every thirty minutes. Among CSEM’s research on the problem is a finding that riders who use the bus system to get to work spend an average of 12 hours a week commuting. That amounts to a time tax, CSEM Founding Director Craig Richardson has said, subtracting hours that riders could spend advancing at work or helping their children with homework.

CSEM contracted with local filmmaker Diana Greene to produce a 2018 documentary “Bus Stop Jobs” (2018) - YouTube, that has helped lead the debate on public transportation, as well as action, with The Winston-Salem Foundation setting up a round of grants of more than $200,000 for innova- tive programs on transportation reform. One of the grants funded a study that CSEM did with students at Forsyth Technical Community College, many of whom depend on WISTA.

CSEM has presented options for transportation reform to the public, most notably from the small city of Wilson, N.C., which has a ridesharing service that has replaced its bus system and is popular with its patrons. Richardson has asked why Winston-Salem can’t start a similar program on a hybrid basis.

The City of WinstonSalem has not taken such steps. The city did commission HDR, an Omahabased company, to do a study of WSTA’s services.

HDR, based on its recent presentation to the Winston-Salem City Council’s Public Works committee, will basically tweak WSTA’s existing plan, instead of exploring a hybrid ridesharing system and supporting and expanding businesses such as Sup- port Systems of Forsyth County.

In an email to me, Courtney James wrote: “The future for us is electric, and we are working toward that. Cutting our fuel costs by going electric can open so many more doors and allow us to assist more individuals and organizations that rely on our services daily. We continue to seek innovative ways to ease the burden of not having adequate transportation. It’s going to take a working economy to restore what we lost from COVID.”

Three years on, her business is helping its patrons overcome transportation barriers. Her business is chipping away at the transportation problem as the city remains mired in piecemeal solutions.

John Railey, raileyjb@ gmail.com, is the writerin-residence for CSEM, www.wssu.edu/csem.

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