With an estimated one third of US schools needing replacement or extensive repair, chances are good that there is a school construction or renovation project on the table–or in the works–in your community. As school decisionmakers determine how best to invest in the future, many are looking toward high-performance "green" schools.
The term "high-performance" describes the actual school facility. You may recall spending time in a building whose lack of air circulation made you feel groggy, or whose noisy heating system drowned out speakers’ voices. Although motivated students and teachers can overcome such problems and perform well despite these and other obstacles, well-designed facilities make education a more enjoyable, productive, and healthy experience.
High Performance on the Bottom Line
As school decisionmakers consider "going green," the question on the top of their minds is, of course, the cost. Cost-effectiveness is, in fact, one of the most compelling reasons for communities to choose to build high-performance schools. Because these schools are designed to be energy, water, and material efficient, they can dramatically reduce operating costs. The US Department of Energy estimates that the nation’s average school utility costs are approximately $125 per student per year, when one takes into account water, wastewater processing, and trash. The costs are likely even higher in many parts of the northeast where heating needs are great and energy is relatively expensive. A high-performance school can yield savings of up to $50 per student per year.
In addition, high-performance schools are built to be durable and therefore require less maintenance. They have also been shown to lead to fewer student absences, which can mean more funding because state aid formulas are often linked to average daily attendance.
Attendance reflects, at least in part, the overall health of the students. High-performance schools are exemplary models of healthy buildings, as they have superior indoor air quality and use sustainable materials that do not release hazardous chemicals. This aspect of high-performance schools is critical: according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, as many as one half of the nation’s 115,000 schools have problems related to indoor air quality. Poor indoor air quality can trigger asthma attacks, spread disease, expose occupants to toxic substances, and cause drowsiness, headaches, and dizziness. High-performance schools mitigate such problems, not only bettering student health, but also decreasing potential liability costs resulting from litigation—an important financial benefit.
The Benefits of Daylight
Designs for high-performance green schools generally emphasize "daylighting," the use of natural light. Combined with healthy indoor air quality, this not only improves students’ health but also enhances their performance. A study conducted in California by the Heschong Mahone Group for Pacific Gas & Electric found a compelling connection between student performance and daylighting. The study analysed test scores for more than 21,000 students from three major school districts and found that those students with the most daylighting progressed up to 20% faster on math tests and 26% on reading tests than those with the least. Several other studies have reached similar conclusions.
In relationship to daylighting’s effect on student health, a study conducted by Innovative Designs in North Carolina found that students in full-spectrum light were healthier and attended school 3.2 to 3.8 days more per year. The study further found that because of the additional vitamin D received by students in full-spectrum light, they had nine times less dental decay and grew in height an average of 2.1 cm more over a two-year period than students attending school with average light.
What Makes a School Green?
Many of the features of a high-performance "green" school are good for the environment. For example, well-designed daylighting reduces the energy used for artificial lighting and heating. More generally, a high-performance school utilizes highly energy-efficient systems for heating, cooling, air handling, and lighting, and avoids using larger systems or appliances than necessary.
Doing site planning in an environmentally responsible manner is another important aspect of building a green school. To the extent possible, natural areas are preserved and the impact on the surrounding environment is kept as small as possible.
In addition, a high-performance green school can incorporate the use of renewable energy, especially solar photovoltaics for electricity or clean biomass systems for heat. By doing this, the school building can help build the market for renewable energy technologies, reduce air pollution, slow global warming, and increase the use of clean, locally available energy sources.
A Building that Teaches
In addition to its environmental, financial, and health benefits, a green school is a building that teaches. A rooftop photovoltaic system, for example, can be used to increase students’ interest in science, math, and other subjects. More generally, a successful high-performance school teaches students, teachers, and even community members about sustainable construction and the environment. It can be a model building that introduces the entire community to building techniques, features, and design strategies that can be incorporated into a wide range of buildings—homes, businesses, and institutions. And, in what is surely an important message for students and adults alike, a high performance green school teaches about the value of looking at the big picture—weighing one’s decisions in relationship to their long-term implications.
Why Aren’t All New Schools Green?
Given all the advantages of a high-performance green school, why don’t all school construction projects take this approach? For one thing, the design costs can be higher, as can some of the construction costs. Even though these expenses will be more than outweighed by the savings in operating costs, a school district may not have the legal or financial latitude to increase its initial construction budget or choose anyone other than the low bidder for the architectural or construction work.
In addition, a successful green school takes more advance planning than the typical school construction project does. A school district’s building committee has to put extra time and effort into setting objectives for the building project, putting together a team of professionals that can work effectively together, and then working closely with those professionals. Because few building committee members have participated in a previous major school construction project, the extra attention required to achieve a high-performance school can seem daunting. It is so much simpler to just go ahead and build a more conventional school.
On the other hand, although it requires some extra effort, it is not ultimately that difficult for a building committee to identify what it believes would make a school a healthy, appealing place for students and teachers, or what would decrease its ongoing operating costs or environmental impact. And because increasing numbers of architects, engineers, builders, and contractors are interested in green buildings practices, it’s getting easier to find appropriate people to work on a project to build a high-performance school. If a good team is put in place from the start, the rest of the process will likely proceed smoothly.
More and more communities are concluding that it’s worth it to try to build a high-performance green school. After all, school decisionmakers generally take their responsibilities very seriously. They don’t want to saddle their community with higher than necessary ongoing costs. And they want to do what they can to help their community’s greatest treasure—its children. A high-performance school can improve the health, happiness, and school performance of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of children over the many decades that the building will remain in use.
Meghan Houlihan last year served as NESEA’s Renewable Energy Outreach Coordinator.
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