Curtis High School’s first ‘Lights Out’ day, was controversially held the same day as Curtis’ remote learning day, December 6th, 2023. This event was hosted by the Environmental Club, a group overseen by Ms. O’Brien which meets Wednesdays in room 205.
This day was one of the several “Climate Action Days” for the school year, scheduled by the New York Office of Energy & Sustainability. There are four of these days, the first having been based upon the theme of energy conservation, hence the ‘Lights Out’ day to conserve electricity and bringing awareness of the issue to the community.
For the Lights Out Day, fliers were hung throughout the school and teachers were asked to have their lights off for the school day. These efforts proved counterintuitive when Chancellor Banks, Chancellor of New York City public schools, made this day the same day as the first round of testing for possible remote learning days. This test was meant to troubleshoot any technological barriers that students might encounter when required to learn remotely in the case schools need to close. On that day teachers were required to post on Google Classroom both classwork and homework and make sure each student had a workable device.
Many teachers did still keep their lights out despite the odd timing, but enough did not that resulted in many students not even knowing the day was a “Lights Out” day. Ms. McConville, who taught Algebra II and Geometry, brought up the blunt point, “‘Lights out’ and ‘remote learning’ are oxymorons.” Many staff and students shared this sentiment. Having these two conflicting initiatives on the same day definitely lessened the impact that the ‘Lights Out’ day had on the Curtis community.
The truth stands that the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City come from buildings, namely schools. This pollution is the responsibility of the city, and is out of the hands of Curtis, but the fact still remains that this “Action Day” had very little ‘action’. Hopefully, the next scheduled day on February 7th, 2024 will redeem the fight for community consciousness in regards to contributions to climate change.
As a part of the next Action Day, the club kicked off a bottle cap drive, asking students to donate any discarded caps to contribute to an art project that will be revealed in February. This second action day revolves around waste. This project will display Curtis’ road to becoming more environmentally friendly as waste is reduced and re-purposed.
