What happened at the meeting at Sen. Sherrod Brown’s Office?

Last month, Jenny Morgan, Alice Hohl and Mark Young (Ohio Parks and Recreation Assoc.) met with Sen. Sherrod Brown asking him to support and possibly co-sponsor the No Child Left Inside legislation, which will fund Environmental Education through a federal grant program. (It will eventually become part of federal schools funding, and be brought into whatever the No Child Left Behind bill turns into under President Obama.)

Between Mark’s knowledge about the bill and about Parks&Rec partnerships with schools, and Jenny and Alice’s knowledge about the importance of actual experiences in the natural world and their positive impact on test scores, the three gave a persuasive presentation.

Followup after the meeting found that Sen. Brown plans to vote for the legislation, but at this time is not planning to become a co-sponsor.

Mark Young has decided not to give up, though, and together he and Alice and Jenny are drafting a letter asking him to reconsider. We have assembled a list of all of our members, and all of the members of the Leave No Child Inside of Greater Cincinnati, and all the members of the Earth Day Coalition in Cleveland (which is the Leave No Child Inside point of contact for Cleveland now) and all the statewide groups we have behind us, such as the Environmental Education Council of Ohio.
Mark is forwarding that letter and list of members and supporters to Sen. Brown in the next few days.

It would help if you could contact Senator Brown today to reinforce our efforts.
Here is his email form.
Here are talking points you can copy from the No Child Left Inside Coalition, the national group that is supporting this bill.