Green New Deal for Public Schools Act

Key Points

• The bill would spend 446 billion dollars to convert public schools into healthy zero-carbon buildings, using solar power and all-electric heating while removing hazards like lead, mold, asbestos, and PCBs. The most vulnerable one-third of schools get 100 percent of costs covered.
• It provides 250 billion dollars in resource block grants to hire more school staff for ten years, including teachers, counselors, nurses, librarians, and mental health workers, aiming for staff ratios of 12:1 in grades K-8 and 15:1 in grades 9-12.
• Funding is targeted at high-poverty schools, tribal schools, and environmental justice communities. Vulnerable schools get full-cost renovations while the least vulnerable schools get one-third of costs covered and can apply for low-interest loans for the rest.
• The bill makes special education funding mandatory and ramps it up each year until the federal government covers 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities in fiscal year 2036 and beyond.
• Construction projects must pay prevailing wages under Davis-Bacon, use registered apprentices, sign project labor agreements on large jobs, buy American-made iron and steel, and give hiring preference to local workers, veterans, and returning citizens.
• It appropriates 74 billion dollars a year for Title I schools and 4 billion a year for a climate resiliency program that turns schools into community disaster shelters, with at least half the resiliency money reserved for environmental justice communities.