Ann Arbor Public Schools students and staff shared some of the district’s environmental efforts at Ann Arbor’s 2026 A2 Zero Green Fair on Friday. This included one of the district’s electric school buses, work underway for net zero ready schools and the student-led idle-free zone campaign.
Pioneer senior Paloma Jackson is a member of the Freeman Environmental Youth Council. Jackson says the student group is excited that their idle-free campaign got a boost from a grant that paid for signs to be posted at schools across Ann Arbor this summer to encourage parents to turn off their car while waiting to pick-up students. “A lot of times at the pick-up line, people will get there like an hour early to pick up kids and get their spot in line and they’ll sit there with their car on for hours,” Jackson says. “It’s proven that idling causes a lot of harmful emissions and when it’s that close to students it’s harmful for the environment and it’s harmful for the kids.”
Jackson says in addition to calling on parents to turn off their cars in the pick-up line, the Freeman Environmental Youth Council wants families to consider other options like walking or biking to school or using school buses. She says the council is now working on getting the idle-free message to high school students who get to school early in the morning and sit with their cars running in the parking lot.
While the Freeman Environmental Youth Council will continue work this year on the idle-free campaign, Jackson says the students will also come up with additional environmental campaigns to focus on this school year.
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