Meeting notes for the following meetings
- Bruce England, liaison and community member
- Bret Andersen, PTA environmental and best practices
- Justin Kahn, Gunn High School Student Council - Environmental Action Chair
- Lucy Wicks, Stanford University
- Theo Ayelen, Stanford University
- Amulya Athayde, PA Resident
Items Discussed
o Lucy mentioned the Marin County's Safe Routes to School as a model program – Bret further researched to find a schoolpool matching program there at Mill Valley that used map zone numbers included in the school directory to facilitate matching between families.
o Bret placed a help wanted ad on the wiki for help with evaluating and potentially developing a commute matching tool in support of local schools’ parent interest in options in this area
· School Green Teams
o Wiki could/should be used to give visibility to & generate ideas for school green team initiatives and share best practices
o Student involvement in initiatives increases to the extent 1) projects can be completed within a year or max 4 2) resources to make the change are within control or influence of students
· Metrics
o Lucy mentioned her upcoming presentation to the CEAP on the topic.
o Stanford hired a sustainability manager that will flesh metrics out for Stanford
· Stanford will have a new sustainability website in the fall in support of its hard work these days on outreach for its sustainability programs
· Green certification: (Gunn, Ohlone have it) – Green Teams at Palo Alto HS and others could take it up as initiatives to work on
Homework for Next Meeting
- Ideas for Justin's "five initiatives" for him and the Gunn Green team to consider at the start of the 08/09 school year
- Ideas for metrics that our segment might use for reporting purposes (for example, we might be able to use some of the PAUSD's Facilities environmental reports to pull from) - Also see June 4th notes.
- Add to the wiki: more information on school green teams and initiatives, improve organization of information
- Bruce England, liaison and community member (absent for segment meeting due to meeting conflict)
- Carolyn Spitz, Palo Alto schools parent
- Bret Anderson, Representing PTA environmental and best practices
- Kathy Ruppel, Nixon School parent
Items Discussed
Car Pooling Initiative - Next steps on 2 options:
1) Test and recommend an available service - Investigate the feasibility of using the Schoolpool software/website as the most school friendly car pooling website - Bret
2) Define a home grown solution - Define a simple mapping web application (based on the offline program at Ohlone school) to support PA schools directly. The solution will have to be reviewed and supported by the Traffic Safety people in PAUSD before starting significant development work. Bret will post a help wanted blurb on the wiki to see if we can get some techie help or leads on corporate sponsorship, etc. to define and eventually develop the solution - Bret
Environmental Curriculum - Kathy mentioned her interest in possibly working on ways to get sustainability into the school curriculum. Initiative remains to be defined here but Bret will try to put some link to info & people working on such things, eg Sustainable Schools Committee, in the Wiki.
Metrics - the group brainstormed metrics as input to this topic at the next CEAP meeting including:
# of Initiatives listed on Wiki with Volunteers
# of volunteers assigned to initiatives
Metrics by Initiative (once initiatives are underway)
Car Pooling - schools participating, reported alternative commute increase (City survey)
Paper Reduction - schools participating, paper purchases (district numbers)
PA Daily News Group reporter, Paulo Pereira visited the group during the discussion to invite us to send articles or news of our segment's activity. Bret will add his contact details to the wiki as a point of contact for news and outreach for our segment.
Media Center Proposal - The group asks if Bruce could distribute his document to the copy list for our info. or comment.
May 7, 2008
- Bruce England, liaison and community member
- Carolyn Spitz, Palo Alto schools parent
- Bret Anderson, Representing PTA environmental and best practices
- Kathy Ruppel, Nixon School parent
- Andy Yanshi, San Jose State University environmental studies student
- Peninsula Sanitary Service, Inc. (PSSI) handles waste management for Stanford and school on their land, such as Nixon, so policies set by the City of Palo Alto that affect other schools don't cover these schools. PSSI, for example, has a program available for handling Nixon's food waste and composting.
- Ohlone School would like to start a web based carpooling registry and service in the Fall of 2008.
According to Carolyn, "I mentioned that a recent 'Bringing Back the Natives Tour' had a carpool match program set up. To see pages or contact these organizers, please see http://spaceshare.com/bringingbackthenatives/. They might be able to give some testimonials/challenges on how it worked. More exciting was the fact on closer examination they utilized a company that facilitates it with technology. Their web site is at http://www.spaceshare.com/. They may be able to customize service for ongoing carpool match or other companies may provide this type of service. [Bret will attempt to learn more from spaceshare.com prior to the next CEAP meeting]
"If pilot is successful, it would worth investigating whether citywide adoption of this type of technology for ongoing carpooling like school/work commutes and also events like concerts, plays, Fetes would be feasible. What I can commit to do before the next CEAP meeting is to look at some of the others listed at http://www.nctr.usf.edu/clearinghouse/ridematching.htm to get a general idea of what else is out there. I'll also see if some of the other transportation focused people in the district have heard anything about any of these tools or have opinions about them."
- We want to compel the state to modify existing law such that teen drivers can carpool to and from school without requiring an adult to go along (Bruce has engaged Brock Winstead, the environmental issues staff person with State Senator Joe Simitian on this issue).
- Kathy Ruppel reports that Nixon School is starting a Green Team in the Fall of 2008 using PAUSD guidelines and tools, and using Ohlone School as their model and partner. (Nixon will have a new principal in the Fall who is engaged to support the effort)
- We discussed polling students at schools at the same level or greater than that used for parents polling (the disparity is presumably most apparent for lower grades)
- We discussed promoting "walking school buses" for lower-grade "carpooling"
How do we encourage students not to drive to and from school, and parents not to drive them (at least not individually)?
How do we draw students in to the CEAP, particularly the Schools segment?
- By arranging activates, which we announce in advance?
- By having an open agenda and letting students of all ages know that we are very interested in hearing what they have to say?
- Some combination of the above?
And outside of what happens at CEAP meetings
- School presentations to stimulate interest?
- Designing curriculum across grade levels to keep interest ongoing throughout the K-12 education cycle.
Since the May 7 meeting, we have been presented the opportunity to develop and participate in a pilot program for a Palo Alto Media Center CEAP series. More information about this will become available shortly.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.