This morning, the People's Alliance Education Action Team submitted the following statement to the Durham Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education regarding the district's "Plan B" proposal for school re-entry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Durham Public Schools Board of Education, 

Thank you for putting together a Plan B proposal for DPS Students. In September, the People’s Alliance Education Action Team issued guiding principles for a safe, sound re-entry, viewable here. Many of these guiding principles are present and highly visible in this Plan B proposal, for which we applaud the district! However, our team feels that the reopening plan in its current form does not adequately meet the following specific guidelines: 

Your 2020 PA Board of Directors is pleased to announce the slate of candidates and officers for next year’s board. Current PA members will have the chance to approve this full slate at our December 13 membership meeting. Prior to that meeting, please take the time to read more about each candidate in the following personal statements and bios.

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It's critical to think about the issues informing our vote during election season. As Durham residents, we want our city to play a leading role in combating the dangerous, life-threatening effects of climate change. Instead of a future of heat, hurricanes, and hardship, we want a future with a healthy environment and thousands of good, new jobs that will transition us to a better world for our children and grandchildren. This future depends on us having renewable energy produced without climate-warming CO2 and methane and clean and efficient transportation.

After months of work by PA’s Environment and Climate Justice Action Team members, the City Council on October 5th passed new and improved agreements with Duke Energy, Durham’s energy provider. These agreements create promising new paths toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from our city’s electricity supply.