Green Schools Parent Toolkit

Green Schools Parent Toolkit

How to get your child's school going green!

Use our Parent Toolkit to green your school

We know how busy you are! And we know how important a green school is to your child's health and education. This Parent Toolkit is designed to make it easy for busy parents like you to follow a few quick and easy steps for greening your child's school.

For each of the steps, we provide links to more information and tools; everything from our "How Green is Your School?" Quiz to waste-free lunch guidelines, and from greening your PTA events
to student action projects and beyond:

1. Watch our 3-minute video - Share the video with friends or download it from the Vimeo site to show at your next PTA meeting, or to your child's principal or teacher, to get them inspired and persuade others to join in greening your school.
   
   
   Green Schools: Growing healthy kids and a sustainable future from Green Schools Initiativeon Vimeo.
2. Form a Green Team - Establish a Green Team with other parents, teachers, students, and staff who will work together on green school activities and ways to engage the whole school community in saving resources. Use our tips for starting a Green Team.
   
3. Make an inventory - Take our "How Green is Your School?" Quiz and find out what your school is already doing and what else needs to be done. Bring the Quiz to your next PTA meeting and involve other parents and school staff in answering the questions. Volunteer to help your child's teacher engage students in hands-on audits where they can use their math and analysis skills to analyze the school's garbage, energy, carbon, or water footprints. These kinds of real-world, hands-on lessons are shown to improve academic achievement.
   
4. Take action with students - Work with your child's class, your Green Team, or a student club or After School program to choose one area from the inventory or audit that you want to improve. Follow actions done by these schools - or dream up your own! Share our Tips for Parents one-pager with your PTA.
   
5. Change your own habits - Parent behaviors play a big role in determining a school's footprint and set examples for children. On your own, you can make a meaningful difference through efforts like these: 
   
   • Green your PTA events and fundraising;
   • Pack a waste-free lunch;
   • Walk, bike, carpool or transit to school;
   • Buy environmentally-friendly and recycled school supplies; and
   • Serve healthy food and get outside with your kids.
6. Celebrate your success - Organize an Earth Day celebration in your child's class or school-wide to celebrate your efforts.

 Thank you for all that you do! Please contact us if we can help support your efforts. 

Green Schools Parent Toolkit and the "What's Your Green Dream School?" Contest made possible by a grant from Full Circle Fund.