In the News
Our work supporting healthy, efficient, and resilient schools continues to earn recognition from media throughout the nation.
We are grateful to the local, state, and national outlets below who have covered Undaunted's work and featured Undaunted voices since 2021.
Coverage of Elective Pay
Coverage of Extreme Weather Impacts on Students
UndauntedK12 In the News
2026
The president’s attacks on clean energy have caused chaos and slowed, but not stopped, climate action.
California fires’ disparate impacts on students offer lessons for how schools should prepare for climate disasters across the nation.
The January wildfires that burned through tens of thousands of acres in Los Angeles may be gone — but the impacts on students in the region are far from extinguished.
When Los Angeles teachers welcomed students back to school in January, they couldn't have imagined what lay ahead. Within days, climate-fueled wildfires would tear through Altadena, Pasadena, and the Palisades, destroying or damaging twelve schools and disrupting education for more than 600,000 students.
Dr. Brenda Cassellius and Jonathan Klein wrote an op-ed on how Elective Pay and energy tax credits drive cost-effective, modern learning space upgrades for students and staff.
Former U. S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist reports on the impact of extreme heat on learning, play, and mental health—and what leaders can do about it.
The Somerville Commission on Energy Use and Climate Change held a meeting to discuss progress on school decarbonization, youth climate engagement and advancements in renewable energy accessibility for the community, on Jan. 7.
2025
Hart County Schools has earned $793,000 by installing a field of geothermal wells — technology that, because it utilizes renewable energy, has enabled the district to acquire tax credits.
“A cut to federal funding would leave more districts—particularly smaller, rural ones—struggling to move forward with necessary improvements to their buildings and energy output,” Ross said
Amherst could save about $4 million through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), said Town Councilor Cathy Schoen, who chairs the building committee.
Vomiting, cramps and lethargy. That’s what thousands of CA student are facing when they go to school in classrooms without air conditioning.
As extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene devastate communities, the impacts on student education are far reaching.
Los Angeles-area public schools are now guided by the country’s most ambitious climate education policies, according to local school administrators and advocates for environmental education. There’s just one problem: There’s little money for any of it.
"Energy costs are the second-largest expenditure for schools after teacher salaries, and every dollar spent on energy is a dollar that can’t be used for teachers, textbooks, supplies and other essential resources,” said Stephanie Seidmon, program director at UndauntedK12.
Students at Johnson Senior High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, no longer complain of headaches and fatigue after a new ground-source heat pump was installed for heating and cooling.
Climate change is heating up the back-to-school season. Some districts hope that pushing back the first day could reduce heat-related cancellations and risks to student health.
The Yolo County Office of Education launched its groundbreaking Schools Resiliency and Sustainability Project, marking a significant milestone in sustainable education practices.
Students and teachers experience the challenges of climate change firsthand, including struggles with extreme heat exacerbated by poor air quality and ventilation. A newly coalescing coalition of school districts, teachers, and nonprofits see a solution.
Stephanie Seidmon said the HVAC program is particularly important at a moment when COVID-19 is surging and California is dealing with worsening heat waves and wildfires, all of which underscore the need for proper air conditioning and ventilation in schools.
“It is a pound-foolish decision that doesn’t address the systemic (energy) affordability crisis we’re facing,” said Stephanie Seidmon, Program Director for UndauntedK12, a nonprofit that helps public schools transition to clean energy.
Some California students are returning to classrooms this month with inadequate cooling — or no air conditioning at all. In Long Beach Unified, the state’s fourth-largest school district, thousands of students will be returning this month to 556 classrooms at 13 schools that don’t have air conditioning.
As climate change intensifies extreme heat around the globe, policymakers must take steps to develop heat standards for children and support infrastructure improvements to ensure schools, child care centers, and communities are safe and healthy places for children.
Throughout California, students and teachers spend classroom time learning about the climate crisis while simultaneously experiencing its impacts. The Climate Ready Schools Coalition (CRSC) wants to address this.
As heat waves creep north, they are baking schools that previously did not need air conditioning. Fixing the problem will be neither cheap, nor easy.
These Utah students are trying to get their school district to commit to clean energy. The initiatives have unfolded in a state where K-12 buildings rank as some of the highest producers of carbon emissions per million square feet nationally.
2024
“This is a threat multiplier for educational inequity,” Klein said. “It’s a serious issue that directly impacts kids’ learning opportunities.”
The upfront costs for geothermal heat pumps in New Bedford would normally be nearly $14 million. But with federal and state rebates, installation costs will drop to about $6.1 million.
“There’s urgency behind the transition: State officials have noted the increasing climate impacts on California schools and the need to adapt buildings to weather these changes.”
“Unlike a grant program with a fixed amount of money for districts to spend on particular expenses, schools and other tax-exempt entities like local and tribal governments can get reimbursed for work that’s already been completed simply by correctly filing tax return forms with the Internal Revenue Service.”
It’s too hot for school, as stifling classrooms cause some teachers to switch to remote learning—or cancel lessons altogether. And the heat will only get worse.
“Statewide planning is key to making safe, electrified schools a reality. With more than 11,000 buildings spanning 730 million square feet and more than 125,000 acres of land, California’s school system has a vast footprint. We need a plan now for all these buildings to stop creating pollution.”
Sara Ross speaks with NBC Boston about extreme heat in local schools as officials tried to assure the community that in the few schools that were not able to be outfitted with air conditioning, they provided fans and water.
Many schools in Massachusetts need HVAC upgrades to not only heat their buildings in winter, but keep things cool as temperatures increase.
We’re having these breaks and disruptions in our in-person learning, and those disruptions are inequitably felt. Communities that have been redlined, underinvested in over decades are the ones where the school buildings are more out of date.”
“The wildfire smoke, the heat, the drought, flooding—all the impacts of climate change are here,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder of Undaunted, a national nonprofit that advocates for solutions to fight climate change. “Schools are where students spend more of their waking hours than anywhere else. We need to make sure they’re resilient and prepared for extreme weather events.”
Closing schools is a common, but unsustainable, response to heat waves, wildfires and other extreme climate events.
“Kids are losing out on learning time,” said Jonathan Klein
“In terms of a broader climate strategy, and the transition to clean energy that we need to make, school should be some of the first places we do that work. Because that’s where young people are: 1 in 6 Americans is on a school campus every day.”
“A coalition of health, city planning and education nonprofits issued a report Thursday urging California leaders to invest $150 billion over a decade to build and renovate schools to mitigate to the increasingly hazardous effects of climate change on children’s health and well-being.”
More than half the energy used in K-12 schools goes toward heating and cooling buildings. And more than 60 percent of school HVAC systems’ energy use is tied to on-site burning fossil fuels, the primary driver of climate change.'
2023
A broad coalition of environmental, housing and education advocacy groups say they have a plan to help Massachusetts meet one of its most challenging climate goals: “decarbonizing,” or dramatically reducing carbon emissions, from buildings in the state.”
“With brand-new federal incentives in place, existing climate or environmental initiatives may no longer be ambitious enough — zero-carbon alternatives might even be less expensive up front, as well as cheaper and better in the long run.
“One-third of all carbon emissions in Massachusetts emanate from the state’s 2 million existing buildings, according to Logan Malik, interim executive director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, a member organization of the Zero Carbon Renovation Fund Coalition.
Manola Secaira talked to our co-founder Jonathan Klein, Dr. Lisa Patel from Stanford, and Sharon Danks from Green Schoolyards America about the increasing threat of extreme heat and its consequences for children’s health and learning.
‘Schools are not prepared for the extreme heat, and we need to change that now,’ said Jonathan Klein. ‘It’s also an equity issue, he said: ‘Our most vulnerable students are the most vulnerable to extreme heat.’
