A Big Win for Clean Energy in the Sunshine State

Judging by the slumped shoulders and absentminded scrolling, most of the attendees at the Broward County School Board Meeting on December 19, 2024 probably weren’t expecting the afternoon to be the start of something big.

But that was before the school board chair, Debbi Hixon, introduced a new resolution, one that would have the Broward County public school district transition to 100% clean energy. After introducing the landmark resolution, she opened the floor for public comment.

Sure enough, the comments came. One by one, students from public and private schools across the county stood up to explain why this resolution was so important. Heads began to snap up from phones, and people jerked awake, necks craning to hear each high schooler talk about Florida’s vulnerability to climate change and the urgent need to clean up its energy system.

When the time came to vote on the resolution, it passed unanimously. That day, every single Broward County School Board member voted for clean energy for their schools.

But how did it happen?

The answer lies in the relentless efforts of the Broward County Green Schools Campaign Team, a coalition of local high-school student volunteers from the Broward Sierra Junior Team and adult volunteer mentors from the Climate Reality North Broward and Palm Beach County (NBPBC) chapter.

One of the key figures in these efforts was Julie Long, a volunteer with the NBPBC chapter with a deeply personal motivation for her work in climate. Gesturing at her five-week-old grandson and beaming with pride, she explained, “This is why we do this.”

Years before the school board vote, Julie was inspired to join the climate movement by her career as a pediatric surgeon. "I've seen firsthand the health consequences of a bad environment on infants and children, so that’s what brought me here,” Julie said.

After attending Climate Reality’s virtual US training in 2021, Julie joined the NBPBC chapter, where she first learned about the Green Schools Campaign. Reading about the Los Angeles chapter’s student-led campaign to transition the LA Unified School District to 100% renewable energy, Julie began to dream of a similar student-led initiative in her home state of Florida.

“To me, if the future looks bleak... the thing that looks good is the young people I’ve met. They understand there’s a problem, and they’re motivated and want to work, but they need some help,” Julie said. “They deserve to grow up in a healthier world.”

She pitched the Green Schools Campaign to the NBPBC chapter, and the members were on board. This was a real opportunity for members to speak up for themselves to advance clean energy in a state where oil and gas use is growing fast and the words “climate change” cannot even be used in state documents.

There was just one problem. A trademark of the Green Schools Campaign is that it is student-led – and the NBPBC chapter didn’t have any students.

Without youth leadership, chapter co-chairs Susan Steinhauser and Holly Lichtenfeld decided to put the campaign on the back burner. But then in the summer of 2024, Green Schools Campaign launched as an independent program, and the idea resurfaced.

Julie and Susan began working with Green Schools Campaign and Climate Reality to search for student leaders with renewed vigor.

The search led them to the Broward Sierra Club Junior Team, a subgroup of high-school students in their local Sierra Club chapter. Themselves on the hunt for a new project, the members of the Junior Team were eager to partner with the NBPBC chapter on the campaign.

Julie recalls how critical this kind of collaboration was to the success of their work. “Nobody can do it alone. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without help from other organizations,” she says. “Once we got [the students on board] things actually moved kind of quickly. Within six months we got a resolution,” she remembers.

In August, the adults from the NBPBC chapter and the students from the Junior Team began meeting regularly. The plan: transition Broward County Public Schools – the sixth-largest school district in the country – to 100% renewable energy.

To get there, the team decided on a two-pronged approach. One group would work on recruiting students, parents, and teachers to the campaign. Another would focus on promoting their vision for a renewable energy transition to the school board on their own behalf.

To recruit new people to the campaign, the students started reaching out to everyone they could. This meant attending city council meetings, talking to public school faculty and staff, and setting up tables at farmers’ markets and other community events.

Even as students became the public face of the campaign, bravely championing their own ideas for a climate-resilient future, there was a critical role for their adult mentors. Julie remembers driving the students to and from meetings and events. “They need adult support for contacts and experience, but then they need just some practical support,” Julie explained. “So that’s one way people can help out.”

Everywhere they went, the team brought a Green Schools Campaign flyer with a petition in support of clean energy in schools. “[The petition] was an important step to build consensus and get the word out,” she recalls. “I started seeing adults saying, ‘Oh, that commissioner signed it. I’m going to sign it too.’ They want[ed] to show up to the party.”

It was through these efforts that the Broward Green Schools Campaign Team recruited Dr. Jody Berman, a teacher at South Plantation High School’s Environmental Science and Everglades Restoration Magnet Program. Jody’s insider knowledge of the district helped the campaign team to navigate conversations with the school board more effectively. “She has opened doors for us, [and] she’s been able to tell us who’s who [in the school district],” Julie says. “She’s been invaluable.”

All the while that Julie and the students were recruiting new supporters to the campaign, others were busy making their own case for clean energy directly with the school board. One of the young activists, Anagha Iyer, drew on her contacts from past advocacy efforts to connect with the school board chair, Debbi Hixon, to discuss options for advancing the campaign’s clean energy goals. Though Hixon initially expressed support for the campaign, it was clear to the coalition that there was not yet enough community support to make the initiative a school board priority.

Undeterred, the students and their adult mentors kept talking to people across Broward County about the opportunity to bring clean energy to their schools. After several months and many hours of staffing tables at events, talking to strangers, and putting flyers in the hands of anyone who'd take one, the coalition partners had gathered several hundred signatures on their petition.

Critically, many of these came from local representatives and mayors. They were even able to get city commissions across the county to release formal proclamations of support. All of this high-profile backing caught the school board’s attention, and by the time the students met with Hixon a second time, she was ready to begin collaborating on a resolution.

Julie worked with chapter co-chair Susan Steinhauser, Iyer and other Junior Team members Lizzy Schenker, Zofia Chmielewska, Audrey Dueñas, Damian Howson, Sasha-Kay Lindo, and Deserie Softleigh to draft the resolution. Hixon provided guidance and feedback, and after several months, the resolution was finally ready to be presented to the school board.

On December 19, the students and their mentors assembled at the Broward County Public Schools board meeting to watch the vote.

As Julie remembers it, what happened next was a blur. Hixon introduced the resolution, which would commit the school district to transition to 100% renewable energy. Next, adult mentors and student leaders from the Green Schools Campaign team stood up to speak on their own behalf in support of the policy.

Julie recalls how abruptly the energy in the room shifted when the young people began to speak. “The response [was] so palpably different. When these kids got up to speak, everybody [in the audience] put their phones down... It was great theater.” When it finally came time for a vote, the resolution passed with unanimous support.

Even though the resolution has passed, Julie says that she and the team are just getting started. In the final text of the resolution, the volunteers committed to leading the school board in its clean energy transition.

“Our schools’ budget has been pretty much decimated by the state,” Julie explains. These financial constraints mean that the volunteers will have to get creative when developing plans for decarbonizing the district’s current power system. “The resolution was very broad and nonspecific ... but that’s all our school board would accept at that point,” Julie says. Without a clear plan for implementation, it’s up to Julie and her co-organizers to hold the school board accountable for the energy transition.

With summer in full swing, the campaigners are hard at work preparing for the coming school year. One of their top priorities right now is to recruit new students who want to use their voice and take over the campaign when the current leaders graduate from high school next spring.

Julie has also since been appointed to the district’s official Green Advisory Committee, which advises the school board on sustainability and climate issues. Julie hopes this insider status will help her learn “who gets things done,” as she puts it, at the school board level and help the team work with the school board even more effectively. Through this committee and through continued meetings with decisionmakers, the volunteers can encourage them to choose zero-carbon options when replacing old appliances, piloting renewable energy technology in a few schools at a time, and more.

Reflecting on the progress of the campaign so far, Julie says, “It’s been very encouraging and hopeful to see that we can make a difference... The only way that we’re going to [drive progress right now] is through local grassroots change.”

Her best advice for success? Don’t give up, and celebrate small wins.

At a time when the political environment is growing increasingly hostile to climate action, we would all do well to remember her guidance, starting in our local communities and neighborhoods to drive forward progress, however slow, toward a just and sustainable future for all.

Rosalind Coats is the Central regional organizer with The Climate Reality Project.