Environmental Club makes request
If the Board of Education adopts a proposed resolution on Climate Change at its meeting on May 9, it looks as if they’ll be only the second school district in New York State to have done so. The first was the Garrison Union School District.
The resolution the board has in front of them was created by three students, sophomore Natalie Pushlar, and juniors Jeff Prosperie and Adam Sharifi. Those three students make up the O’Neill High School Environmental Club. They were at the April 25 meeting of the board to present their resolution and as the school district’s help in educating its students about climate change issues.
With them were Mike Mallon, the district’s longtime Environmental Science teacher, and Olga Anderson, a climate change activist from Highland Falls. Both helped the students in their quest to get before the Board of Education.
“Climate change is a world-wide issue spreading exponentially,” the students read from the proposed resolution. “It affects the environment, including students here in the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School District. Having knowledge on climate change and the effect it is having on the worked is a valuable piece of information for students to know. Because children are more vulnerable to adverse health effects from the environmental hazards caused by climate change, they will be burdened with greater impacts than adults, as it worsens through their lifetime.”
The students suggest some simple changes within the school district — better separation of materials to be recycled from garbage, and the use of paper straws versus plastic in school cafeterias — to start the process of helping the environment. They also asked that students be better educated about climate change.
Board members met the students’ request with applause and thanked them for working with Anderson and Mallon in creating the resolution.
