Last week, the Center for Green Schools hosted a summit focused on climate resilience planning in school systems at the LEED Platinum Austin Central Library in Austin, Texas. This one-and-a-half-day event gathered 35 attendees, including 16 school district leaders from across the country, for hands-on learning to explore strategies and challenges for system-level climate resilience planning.

The summit began with a tour of Austin Independent School District's Doss Elementary School, which merges a playful, biophilic, treehouse-inspired design with many sustainable features. Attendees explored the LEED Gold school’s adaptive elements, including its high-performance envelope, extensive shade cover, outdoor learning spaces, water recovery systems and energy-efficient building systems—all of which support operations in extreme weather conditions.

Staff participate in a school tour. Photo courtesy of Phoebe Beierle.

Assessing and addressing climate risks

The first day of the summit laid the groundwork for school climate resilience planning by diving into tools and strategies for identifying and preparing for climate risks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency led an interactive session walking attendees through the National Risk Index and Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool to identify specific climate hazards and overlay social vulnerabilities impacting their communities. Staff from Hawai'i Preparatory Academy then shared their experience leading a community resilience hub, including conducting a climate risk assessment and aligning preparedness with the school’s sustainability goals.

Following this session, school district leaders from Austin Independent School District, the School District of Palm Beach County and Bellingham Public Schools shared infrastructure, policy and operational strategies for protecting against extreme heat, flooding and storms, and wildfire preparedness, respectively. These presentations provided context for breakout group work on identifying adaptive strategies for climate risk.

School staff map infrastructure, policy and operations preparedness strategies by risk. Photo courtesy of Hannah Carter.

Finding synergies and making the case for investment

Building on the learning from the first day, attendees explored alignment opportunities with broader community planning; school district emergency, facilities and sustainability plans; and equity goals to create more comprehensive implementation. Staff from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shared recent resources, funding opportunities and updates from the Climate Resilient Schools Program.

The summit concluded with a deep dive into planning for investment in climate resilience through tools and data. Attendees synthesized their learning by developing elevator pitches to make the case for investing resources in climate resilience planning.

Download the "Preparing Schools for Climate Resiliency" brief to learn more

Climate Resiliency Summit convenes school district staff and community leaders