Guest columnist Lisa Modenos: Answer the call of school climate crisis

  

  

By LISA MODENOS

Published: 01-19-2025 7:33 PM

As many of us are aware, there have been projects and funds put toward climate care in Northampton, to lower our carbon footprint and help our environment toward a more sustainable future. Environmental sustainability and care are so very important, and understanding ecosystems and how they function is a profoundly important science and a framework that we should all adopt.

For example, in environmental science, indicator species are organisms that are vulnerable to and sensitive to changes in the ecosystem. Scientists observe and track these indicator species to understand the health of a particular environment.

Another example is sentinel species, those that are often even more susceptible to changes that can harm, and so tracking them can help us understand and support the larger health of the environment. These are akin to the canary in the coal mine — keep an eye on the canary, its breathing, its heart rate, and you will see the harm in the environment before it hits the larger group.

Our public schools in Northampton are an ecosystem. The climate of our schools is in danger. Our most vulnerable children are indicators, they are our canaries, they are our sentinels. And they have been showing us signs of distress for years. This year the air in the mine is choking them and we are at crisis level, for them and the entire school ecosystem. This is not an exaggeration.

I appreciate the brave educators who have come to City Council and School Committee meetings, who have made statements to our elected officials and to the public, describing the climate of our schools. These dispatches from the inside have been heartbreaking as we have learned about the daily struggles to support our students in Northampton, all due to the most recent budget cuts that have harmed an already struggling district.

Overcrowded classrooms, lack of paraprofessional supports for teachers and students, safety issues in schools, disabled children being left alone to wander and even leave school, high percentages of children who are not reading at grade level, lack of class offerings, oversize caseloads for counselors, IEP violations, and educators and administrators alike being pulled in different directions to cover a variety of needs due to the lack of staffing.

This is a school climate crisis.

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Yet we still have elected officials denying our school climate is in danger, saying we are not at crisis level. Our sentinels have been sending warnings for a while now, and some of our elected officials are school climate deniers.

Is this the Northampton you imagined when you decided to build a life here, or raise a family here? We need a school climate intervention now. Otherwise, we are the Palisades in California just a few weeks ago, pretty on the outside, with blinders on to the reality that a disaster is imminent due to the disregard of the climate warnings. Northampton, please listen to our sentinels, listen to our teachers, paraprofessionals, and others on the ground who are seeing the signs of distress that are being conveyed to them on a day-to-day basis.

As you fight to protect the natural climate, Northampton, please also fight for a healthy and functioning school climate. Please do the right thing: Fully fund our schools.

Lisa Modenos lives in Florence.