School Facilities accountability

Williams Anniversary Outreach Campaign

For 2025, Clean Air Allies is launching an outreach campaign to celebrate the anniversary of Williams v. California, a class-action lawsuit brought in 2000 by Eliezer Williams and nearly 100 other California schoolchildren. The plaintiffs argued that the State of California and its officials had denied their state constitutional right to an equal education by failing to ensure access to “essential learning tools and conditions,” including safe and healthy school facilities.

The lawsuit’s settlement, announced in August 2004 and approved by the state superior court in March 2005, created public school facilities accountability mechanisms still used today. These include:

• notices in every non-charter public school classroom;
• a complaint procedure for parents, students, teachers, and community members;
• a Facilities Inspection Tool (FIT);
• annual School Accountability Report Card (SARC) facilities reporting; and
• ongoing multilayered oversight.

These mechanisms are supposed to involve a range of stakeholders at different levels. However, many grassroots advocates aren’t aware of them, and too often, they’ve devolved to “box checking” by education officials.

Throughout 2025, Clean Air Allies will raise awareness of the accountability tools created thanks to Williams and explore how they can be leveraged to increase access to clean air, and better facilities conditions generally, in California public schools.

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Williams settlement’s approval, and twenty-fifth anniversary of the underlying lawsuit, as an opportunity to:

• be inspired by the plaintiffs’ courage,
• take stock of the important rights they asserted, and
• ask what action is needed to ensure all California schoolchildren have access to essential learning tools and conditions today.