Challenge West Virginia

By Paul Thompson

Green Schools are being built in increasing numbers across the country. The USGBC—United States Green Building Council—and its affiliated LEED program—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—are spurring practically all of these efforts. The USGBC states its mission as follows: to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life. LEED rates building designs in terms of water and energy efficiency (including reduced carbon emissions), site sustainability, the use of green or recycled materials, appliances and fixtures, and indoor air quality.

What West Virginia is doing

West Virginia’s school boards and school administrators are just beginning to hear more about these programs in favor of modern green attributes in school design. For example, the recent release in June 2008 of the School Building Authority of West Virginia’s, “Quality and Performance Standards.” This 81-page announcement addresses the concern for environmentally responsible development in school construction. The SBA’s Quality and Performance Committee document states, “High Performance Green School building systems and materials are referenced within this document to provide unique comprehensive tools to construct Green School components that address acoustics, indoor air quality, energy use reduction, water conservation, day lighting and thermal comfort of SBA school buildings.”

Life cycle costing

Method always follows philosophy; therefore, a good place to start is to ask, why are we seeing this growing trend in green school facilities? First, facility managers are becoming more aware of the life cycle costs of buildings. In the past, there were only two considerations: how much did a building cost to design and how much did it cost to construct. However, not all buildings were created equally and the facility management experts began to realize that there was a difference in the total costs between various buildings due to the expenses of operating and maintaining a facility through its expected lifetime.

Durability factor in life-cycle costing

Clearly, savings in reduced utility bills and other operation expenses would be favorable to any school board. However, there is another part of life-cycle costs that might be overlooked. When building schools it is also important to consider the durability of the building components. A building isn’t very green if there is a need to be throwing good money at major repairs five or even 20-plus years after you have already paid to build it. Presently, there are more situations like this than we might care to admit. Some schools have been built knowing mechanical systems where not adequate for the building’s lifetime. This has resulted in school boards needing to replace heating and cooling systems, making major roof repairs and perhaps even making repairs caused by water damage due to inadequate roofing systems, etc.

Durability of bricks

A principle basic building component that is important to consider is ordinary bricks. Most conventional schools are built with bricks. Bricks are a very low-maintenance and a durable building material. But there are problems associated with settling foundations and years of weathering that can cause bricks to become unstable. Furthermore, new regulations in brick construction are now requiring even greater amounts of rebar re-enforcements to meet seismic requirements. Plus, it takes a lot of insulation in the walls behind them to make them energy efficient. Believe it or not, there are now building materials that are more cost efficient, durable and much less expensive.

Growing anxiety

Another philosophical reason that green schools are a better alternative for our communities is the stress children encounter with the dire predictions of ecological disorder. Whatever you believe to be true about global climate change and other related environmental issues, children will be better off by feeling as secure and safe as possible. The environmental explosion in today’s media is casting a tremendously dark shadow for their futures. You probably will remember, just a few decades ago that there was the threat of nuclear annihilation. Personally and for others, this became the cause of deep-rooted fears that life, as we know it could be destroyed in less than a day. These types of growing anxiety are unhealthy.

Environmentally responsible

Today, children are subjected to this inner fear of ecological devastation. Increasingly, we see psychiatric practitioners documenting these cases of intense anxiety. Responsible stewardship of the environment is a good reason to fight for better energy saving solutions in school facilities. Our children will become our future citizens. They don’t need to be agonizing in fear and despair about the overly reported consequences of a damaged earth. They will need a spirit of hope, a sense of personal responsibility and the ingenuity that will help them cope with the problems they will need to face in their lifetimes.

Human behavior and ingenuity

Green schools are, therefore, a remarkably practical way to demonstrate how our future can be changed by using the world’s resources more wisely. The one thing that is certain in the entire environmental issue is that the most consequential variable that is unknown in the equation is the one that deals with present and future human behavior and ingenuity. There can be no argument that the actions we decide to take in response to environmental problems now will greatly influence our future decisions. This leads to the last philosophical justification. I’d like to relate some of my personal story to help illustrate its meaningfulness.

Green trailblazers

Many years ago, I had to walk home through a blinding, cold, winter blizzard. It was dark and there was already over four feet of snow on the ground. I decided that I needed to take the shortest route, which would take me off the somewhat plowed streets and lead me across a local golf course. As I walked headlong into a strong wind, I noticed that I was walking on a path through the deep snow that had been formed by others coming this way previously. Had I not had the path, then I would have had to tear through the deep snow and might have possibly not made it home that night. At that moment, it dawned on me that some people have to blaze trails so when others in the future need a way to a better, safer life, they will also have a path to follow and help them through difficulties.

People for the seasons to come

This personal experience ultimately would result in my decision to further an environmental science education with a higher degree that would deal with the poorly understood theological factors that contribute to our environmental uncertainties. Ultimately, several years ago I realized the practical implications of placing students in schools where they could learn these valuable lessons of building green. It is said, relative to architecture, that we build buildings, but they in turn shape us. In addition, few probably remember when former Gov. Cecil Underwood in his farewell address declared, “Not only did we need to become people of all seasons, we needed to become people for the seasons to come.”

Meeting future challenges

Some roads or even interstate highways were once paths blazed through the wilderness by the many explorers who left the comforts of what they knew and what they had always done before, who risked much to help open up new frontiers in our country’s development. The history of our predecessors’ experience in America needs to be repeated even more today for our future generations. Some of us must meet today’s challenge and lead the way for those who will follow.

Green methods

All this now brings us to the indisputably hard part, the methods that make a school green. Because the effort for green schools is relatively new, nationwide data are limited. In most cases, the estimated additional costs of going green will add 2 percent to 6 percent to the project. In school construction, recently completed projects are showing costs that are more toward the estimated high end of 6 percent. In theory, the payback occurs on the back end of the building’s life cycle costs by decreasing operational and, in some cases, maintenance expenses. There are also additional savings from ‘soft’ returns associated with a healthier building. The healthier conditions of a school building are what school designers refer to as high-performance standards; these additional healthy building benefits improve daily attendance, teacher retention and test scores.

Discouraging results

The limited data on actual results from energy savings and improvements in soft costs that are available are not exceptionally significant. A National Center for Policy Analysis 2008 summary, “Green Schools Don’t Make the Grade,” asserts, “In Washington state—the national leader in embracing the green school movement— schools built to comply with green standards have consistently failed to meet the energy saving targets claimed by supporters, and have not shown improvements in student health or other metrics.”

Reasons for poor results

There are many reasons why green schools are not what many claimed. First, there are conflicting desires, for example, the desire for more natural light through day lighting requires more windows. Windows are not as energy efficient as an insulated wall. Another example is the desire to bring in more fresh air to increase indoor air quality. This, in turn, leads to the heating and air conditioning units running more often. Also, there are often cookie-cutter standards, forcing expenditures that occasionally do little to achieve energy savings or other goals but must be met to receive required certification points.

Improving results

The key factor is to hire an architect to design your facility that is competent in the best green building practices so you realize the greatest benefit for your investment. A LEED certification does not necessarily mean you will save money and can lead to the wasteful squandering of building funds. Furthermore, the recent explosion of green has created a need for some designers to hurry up and get some type of certification. There are schools districts that have hired firms to design their green schools and those firms had nobody with any certified qualifications to build green. This resulted in some quick shuffling of paperwork and perhaps a short online course to make it all look legitimate. This looks like a rather irrational way to invest in the future of our students, teachers and community, especially when meeting off-the-shelf goals for certification points does not necessarily result in better schools.

Green school design is an art

If your school district is deciding to go green, then you really have to remember that going green is more like art than anything else. As a rule good, green architects are both right- and left-brained, so they can envision the local future needs and place that vision on a practical scale and a workable plan. Green ideals still need to be economically cost-effective in respect to what your local school demands for the best possible use of local resources and your investment. Green improvements are desirable; however, there will always be tradeoffs that will be best decided on an individual basis for each project. Therefore, school districts will be better off to hire a green school designer with experience and not focus on snarling certifications.

Knowing the price of everything and learning the value of nothing

As mentioned, whatever plan is adopted, it also must include a facility that is healthy and especially not harmful to the health of those who will be using it. For example, most are aware of the costs of asbestos removal or the threats of mold growing in the walls, ceilings or HVAC vents. These types of common-sense quality technicalities and high-performance standards are now included in school building codes, especially keying in on areas like indoor air quality. However, indoor air quality can mean practically anything from volatile organic compounds to carbon dioxide to mold and dust mites. There are also building codes that are dealing with acoustics. Two additional high-performance characteristics school building authorities have on their future wish lists are thermal comfort and day lighting. The need to balance all these factors with energy and maintenance savings illustrates the arduous nature of green design and how difficult it can be to get effective results.

Green means local

The one factor of going green that has not been covered and might be of great interest for those that are resisting the loss of community schools to the consolidated schools plan is the concept of ‘locality.’

Recently, in a conversation with a county resident resisting consolidation – someone who has made his livelihood operating trucks – was perhaps some of the best guidance that those who are leading the push for consolidation could consider. He stated, “I’ve seen a lot of people go broke trying to make it operating at a dollar a mile and making 99 cents.” Currently schools districts are reimbursed 80 cents on the dollar for busing students from all ends of their counties. But it is still costing the school board 20 cents to do that and the 80 cents reimbursement represents taxes paid to the state by the very residents who somehow believe that they are receiving ‘free’ money.

Going green in its truest essence requires us to do less commuting and provide learning facilities that are a little closer to home. This could be achieved by placing monitors, teachers’ aides and teachers locally and using more computer technology and distance learning education in our schools.

The future of green

First, because green schools will be continually refined, the perfect green school will never be built. However, we are just beginning to look at how we can start ‘greening’ our schools, and there are still plenty of improvements to be found. The best news is that with a good design and plan, green schools can save school districts money. There are green methods of construction that reduce the cost of building a school by nearly half of what we are presently spending. There are green school plans that make sense for rural areas that don’t want children riding on buses for hours a day. There are green building materials that increase durability and improve energy savings.

If your local school board would like to take a healthier look at going green, and doing it better, we can help. Contact me at Next Generation Schools, by phone 304-269-5168 or e-mail at NextGenerationSchools@verizon.net

Paul Thompson is executive director of Next Generation Schools.

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