At Green Team’s weekly meeting, parent liaison Sybil Cramer sits quietly at the front of the classroom, watching the students she’s worked with to make the school a greener place.
It’s been nearly two decades since Cramer first got involved with Green Team, a club aiming to promote sustainability in the community.
“She supports us with everything that we do,” Co-President senior Luke Byrne said. “She organizes meetings for us to plan yearly goals, helps incentivize new members and always attends all of our events.”
Cramer’s Green Team career started in 2009, when her son, Michael Cramer ‘10, who was a member of the club, asked her to help escort guest speakers as a parent volunteer. Sitting in on meetings, Cramer became inspired by students and their efforts to create sustainable change. Soon enough, she was there every week.
As a community college language arts instructor turned stay-at-home mom, Cramer had no prior experience with sustainability efforts. Regardless, she was hooked. After learning that Gunn High School had been green-certified by the county through the Bay Area Green Business Program, she was determined to have LAHS do the same.
The same year she joined Green Team, Cramer founded the Go Green Sustainability Committee within the LAHS Parent Teacher Student Association to pursue certification.
“It’s not just a matter of getting recognized,” Cramer said. “It’s a matter of taking pride in the fact that we’ve earned this certification, that as a community, we’re all pitching in to help the environment.”
In 2010, LAHS became a Santa Clara County Green Certified School. However, Cramer’s green ambitions didn’t stop there. More than a decade later, in 2023, she helped the school win the federal Green Ribbon School Award.
Given to only 27 schools nationally, the award recognized LAHS’s efforts to conserve resources and promote environmental awareness. Cramer said she’s not only proud of this achievement, but also hopes it will encourage a continued community and acknowledgement of sustainability.
“Students are sometimes overwhelmed when they hear about climate change, thinking it’s too much to take on,” Cramer said. “But there are little, everyday things that will eventually amount to large-scale change. Five pennies make a nickel.”
Green Team members say that Cramer has inspired a renewed sense of agency by emphasizing this mindset.
“It’s made me look at things in my community differently and feel like I can actually make a difference,” Co-President senior Linnea Forslin said.
The list of small, on-campus sustainable changes championed by Cramer includes getting the school to use 30% recycled-content printer paper, preventing the removal of trees in the front parking lot and eliminating single-use plastic water bottles in the cafeteria.
“She’s very passionate about what she does, and it’s such an inspiration,” Luke said.
In October, the District awarded Cramer the MVLA Spotlight Award. With members of the Green Team, PTA, PTSA and Sustainability Committee there to watch her accept the award, Cramer describes the experience as “glorious.”
“Sybil is a reminder of the power one person has to spark change and create a lasting legacy,” wrote Principal Tracey Runeare in the introductory remarks of the Spotlight Award presentation.
Cramer, however, disagreed with the idea of just “one person,” crediting her success to collaborative effort and community support.
“No team athlete wins a game by themselves, even a star,” Cramer said. “It takes a team to accomplish great things. At LAHS, we have a great team.”
