$150m earmarked for building projects
Spurred by rising energy costs and concerns about the effect of indoor air quality and lighting on student health and academic performance, Massachusetts wants to dramatically change the way schools are built.
Decades after solar panels and windmills made a brief appearance on the American landscape, the state is pressing districts to construct ''green schools'' and include features that save and generate energy and use more natural light. The state has joined the Renewable Energy Trust, with $150 million funded by ratepayer surcharges, to use financial incentives to prod districts to build green.
''In the past we were pretty much only concerned with the adequacy of the space as far as educational needs,'' said Jeff Wulfson, associate commissioner for school finance for the state Department of Education. ''This is a whole new way of looking at school building.''
Superintendents, he said, know that ''anything you spend on oil bills and gas bills is money you are taking away from the classroom.''
Green school construction proposals meeting state approval will earn a 2 percent increase in state reimbursement funds. Schools also may seek funding from the Renewable Energy Trust, which has awarded design and construction grants of up to $630,000 each to school projects under construction in Beverly, Salem, Somerville, Waltham, and Williamstown.
The Williamstown Elementary School, the furthest along, opens in the fall. Projects in Brockton, Falmouth, Newton, and the Gill-Montague Regional School District also are getting some money, while another 16 projects are exploring going green.
Mitchell Adams, executive director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative in Westborough, which administers the Renewable Energy Trust, said the aim was to find school building projects already underway. ''We jumped into the mid-course of projects and said, `Look, make a proposal for making this a green school,''' he said. ''We're all getting a little bit anxious about depending on this lifeblood oil from the Middle East. We need to balance our energy portfolio so we are less dependent.''
The move marks a concerted attempt by Massachusetts to confront the energy bugaboo in public buildings. It's an effort being replicated nationally, as the federal government and several states - including New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina - call for public buildings to meet design and energy-efficiency standards set by the US Green Building Council in Washington, D.C.
Barbra Batshalom, executive director of The Green Roundtable in Boston, an independent nonprofit, said interest in green construction has exploded in the past three years. ''It's a fast-moving snowball, but it's still just beginning,'' she said. ''Once communities realize the impact on kids' health and the availability of water and energy conservation, people will have a loud voice on this. There is no reason they should be paying more for the maintenance and operation of schools than they need to.''
Judy Mulligan, former business manager for the Beverly public schools, knows how energy costs can drain school budgets. Heating costs at two schools renovated in the past few years have tripled thanks to higher fuel costs and systems to improve air circulation, she said.
Bill Reed, architect and environmental consultant with the US Green Building Council, said too many buildings are ''extremely resource dependent and are just plain bad places to live and work.''
Green building, he said, ''is not a fad. It is not granola headish. It makes business sense.'' For example, the costs of building green can be 2 percent or less of a project's budget, and can cut energy costs by 40 to 50 percent, Reed said.
While the public image of solar power is that it's more suited for cooking hot dogs than heating buildings, Dick Tinsman, director of the Green Buildings Program for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, said photovoltaic - or solar - panels have made major leaps since the 1970s.
''Those were the Model T days of solar panels,'' he said. ''Today, we are probably in the 1950s with cars that work. Have we got further to go? Yeah, but they are working. They will get smaller, they will get better, they will get more refined.''
While much of what people think of as green are features such as solar cells and wind turbines, architects say less obvious moves - the way a building is oriented in relation to the sun, how wastewater is handled, or optimizing natural light while blocking excessive heat from the sun - will yield the most significant savings over time.
One key green feature is light shelves that take sunlight and bounce it onto ceiling tiles to provide more lighting while shading the interior of the classroom from the sun's glare. Classrooms can have light sensors that automatically shut off or dim electrical lights when there is enough natural light present for students and teachers to work.
At the South Elementary School under construction in Waltham, created as a green school, architect James Carr of Flansburgh Associates in Boston said the building was designed and oriented to maximize use of natural daylight while preventing classrooms from overheating and making hallway lights almost unnecessary. In addition, 32 photovoltaic panels - which double as translucent shades - will produce enough electricity to power the library/media center, art room, and cafeteria.
A solar thermal system on the roof will provide hot water while water runoff from the building will be reintegrated into a wetland area being restored behind the school for student study. Students will be able to track the amount of energy the sun is generating.
Carr, who estimates the features will produce 18 kilowatts of power at peak operation, said energy generated when the school is not in use will flow into the electric grid to the utility, earning the city a credit for that power. Schools not built this way don't generate any power. (As a point of reference, he said an efficient 3,000-square-foot home uses 4 kilowatts of power at peak.)
While educators are interested in energy savings, green schools also promise better air quality indoors and better learning and teaching environments. Some older Massachusetts schools, particularly airtight structures built in the 1960s and '70s, have histories of air-quality problems or are built with windows that don't open. Michalene Hague, an English teacher at Peabody High School for 31 years, said her third-floor classroom gets so warm that students fall asleep or lose concentration. ''Many teachers are just as sleepy as the students,'' she said.
Research shows that daylight also can improve academic performance. A report by a California architecture consulting firm shows students in classrooms with the most natural light progressed 20 percent faster in math and 26 percent faster in reading - and scored 25 percent higher on standardized tests - than students exposed to the least natural daylight.
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