Duluth students’ Climate Club inches toward a solar victory

DULUTH – Sisters Zoe and Mauren Pierson were in sixth grade when they helped found the Climate Club at their Duluth middle school.

Now high school seniors, the sisters and the club are inching close to their biggest win yet: the installation of a solar array on an elementary school on the southern edge of the city.

They’ve argued for the use of grant money to fund 90% of the project’s $1 million price tag. The Duluth school district, in the midst of budget woes, just needs to officially apply, as well as come up with its $100,000 share of the cost.

The Climate Club spent last Tuesday evening urging the school board to do just that to make the 426-kilowatt solar array atop Stowe Elementary a reality.

“Everywhere you look, climate change is having an effect on the planet,” Duluth East senior Mauren Pierson told the board. “In Florida, hurricanes like Hurricane Milton have been intensifying in size and destruction. This is real.”

Behind her stood a roomful of supporters — most wearing shades of blue, the color of solar panels. On deck to speak was her fraternal twin, Zoe.

As two of the Climate Club’s senior members, the sisters have pushed for similar projects since they helped form the group at Ordean East Middle School.

“It means a lot that it seems to look a lot more hopeful today,” Mauren said. “It makes me kind of emotional to think about how long we’ve been doing this and how hopeful it seems.”

Zoe said she was 11 or 12 years old when she first spoke in front of the school board on behalf of the club.

“Now I’m 18 and I’m a senior, and seeing how far we’ve come — it’s beautiful, but also kind of sad that it’s taken seven years to get where we are today,” she said.

School Superintendent John Magas praised the Climate Club’s initiative but stressed that budgetary restraints — not lack of motivation — are behind the district’s hesitation to commit. Besides the Stowe array, the district is also considering a larger array at Lincoln Park Middle School, which he said would come at no cost to the district.

The proposals come as the district faces ongoing financial troubles: $5 million in budget cuts for the 2025-26 academic year, estimated to be the equivalent of 50 full-time teacher positions. Magas said the current budget was already reduced by $2.6 million — largely with nonpersonnel cuts. But he said next year will be a different story.

“At this point, many of the reductions will unfortunately be reductions in workforce,” Magas said.

He said the district has been interested in solar power for some time, citing the project at Lowell Elementary School that preceded his term as superintendent.

“We’ve been promoting solar, the board’s been promoting solar, been lobbying for solar,” Magas said. “We just have to do so in an affordable, responsible way.”

The Lincoln Park project would be a collaboration between the school district, the city and Minnesota Power; the school and the city would each get a portion of the power generated. The application begins in January.

“That would be an opportunity that the solar club is really excited about, and I am, too,” Magas said. Though it would still need to be approved, Magas said there are some factors that may help their chances. “The site is perfect, it’s got a lot of good perks with it being associated with learning and the schools. It’s very visually prominent with it coming up out of the city; it’s perfectly poised for catching sunlight.”

Magas noted more potential roadblocks for the smaller proposed array at Stowe Elementary, including costs and structural concerns over the weight of the solar panels on the roof. The district is having an engineer review the school’s building plans.

The district was preapproved for $500,000 from a new state Solar for Schools grant for the Stowe array, or 50% of the estimated cost of the installation.

The Climate Club said an extra 40% of the total cost could be paid for in the form of tax credits awarded through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, leaving a bill of around $100,000. The deadline for the school to complete its final Solar for Schools application is Dec. 20.

“As the students noted, we are in a budget reduction phase,” Magas said. “Every $100,000 we invest in a project is going to be basically the equivalent of a full-time teacher. And so we have to be really careful about that.”

The Climate Club estimated the Stowe installation would recoup the costs after one year of service and said the savings could be used for teacher salaries or other green-energy programs.

The students also said the projects would bring the district in line with Duluth’s Climate Action Work Plan, which aims to reduce the city’s emissions by 80% by 2050.

For now, the club is eagerly waiting to see which plan, if any, the district adopts.

“It’s super exciting that the city project is being considered, and that’s a really big step for the district,” Mauren said. “But we also really hope that they go with the Stowe project because these funds won’t be around forever.”

Seth Roeser is a University of Minnesota Duluth student on assignment with the Minnesota Star Tribune.