In the Philadelphia School District, where there is about a
$1.5 million deficit in a citywide budget to sustain public schools, why would
sustainable schools be contemplated?
According to Rachel Gutter, director for the center for
Green Schools of the U.S. Green Building Council, which held its annual
convention in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center last month,
“it makes economic sense.”
About 70,000 people from the United States and abroad
attended the four-day convention, which was devoted to exploring the progress
of design attuned to improving the effect of buildings on the environment.
Gutter, speaking on a panel with other school building
experts on the first floor of the new section of the Pennsylvania Convention
Center, said that the money saved from heating, cooling and air conditioning
alone could make up for the additional cost of building a green school as
opposed to a conventional one.
According to the United States’ Green Building Council, the
LEED green building program is the top program for the design, construction,
maintenance and operation of green buildings. LEED buildings, the Green
Buildings Council says, use less energy in the United States and increasingly
abroad.
LEED, which stand for Leadership in Energy and Environmental
design, saves money and contributes to a healthier environment for the people
who use the buildings as well as cutting down on carbon and other emissions.
The Green Building Council judges the level of LEED
certification from simply certfied to silver through gold and platinum. Each
credit is allocated points based on the environmental impact and human benefits
that it addresses.
“We are only starting to scratch the surface of the benefits
of LEED building in schools,” Gutter said.
She said that many school districts were finally getting
away from using the cheapest material that was produced in a bidding
competition to using energy-efficient materials.
Even in cash-strapped Philadelphia, there are examples of
schools that are good for the environment — LEED-certified schools.
In 2006, West Philadelphia’s School of the Future opened at
4021 Parkside Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19104, expecting students to have laptops
by their sides every school day. The school required no traditional textbooks.
It all began three years earlier, when Microsoft and the
School District of Philadelphia first formed a partnership to design, develop
and launch a school that prepared students for a “changing world.”
After two and half years of planning, the School District of
Philadelphia, Microsoft and the Prisco Group architectural firm designed the
School of the Future. The school is located on eight acres adjacent to
Fairmount Park and was designed as a template that can be replicated throughout
the country and worldwide on a traditional budget.
The design incorporates the principle of adaptation at any
site, making it able to adjust to smaller or bigger student capacity and
incorporate different curricula and programs. The design supports continuous,
relevant and adaptive learning principles.
According to the School District, the West Fairmount Park
location near the Philadelphia Zoo was chosen as a sort of a test that would
show that “if this sustainable and technology-influenced school could work in
Philadelphia, it could work anywhere” and thus could serve as a model for
cities around the nation.
Since the concept was unveiled and since the launching, the
School of the Future has been challenged by the same fund problems found
throughout the system.
However, everything from the design of the building to the
bright, white walls and natural light shining in the windows cuts costs. These
cost-cutting measures, part of its LEED certification, makes this public school
unique in the budget-strapped school district of today.
School district spokesmen said that it’s important to make
clear that no additional per-pupil money or resources go into the School of the
Future more than any other comprehensive, non-magnet high school.
“That is important because it was part of Microsoft and
then-superintendent Paul Vallas’ negotiations … to build a school that could be
replicable and sustainable,” the school spokesman said.
In addition to the School of the Future, there are five
LEED-certified schools in Philadelphia, which are certified gold or silver:
Commodore John Barry Elementary School; Kensington CAPA High School; Thurgood
Marshall Elementary School; West Philadelphia High School and Willard
Elementary School.
Source: MontgomeryNews.com
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