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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: August 2008
Gettin’ Schooled
Green design at the elementary level
Story by Joanna Corman
Drive up to Creekview Ranch Middle School, and the first thing you notice are the windows: floor-to-ceiling glass on both sides of the multipurpose gym. It’s a welcoming design that floods the room with light. It’s also a contrast to many public schools, whose cinder block walls and tiny windows often resemble junior penitentiaries, rather than the nurturing learning environments they’re supposed to be.
The Roseville school, which will open to 650 students this month, is the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District’s first project using Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design guidelines, an eight-year-old national green building program developed by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council, based in Washington.
The school is clad in galvanized steel siding, a recycled material. Classrooms have energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning, 14-foot ceilings, skylights and a wall of windows. Wood for the gym floor comes from sustainably managed forests. The school district hopes to achieve gold certification, the second highest LEED level.
While the school district has been using environmentally friendly design for years, says Alan Colombo, the district’s former director of facilities, the previous superintendent recently pushed for a higher standard. The district is now designing a second school under LEED, making it part of a nationwide trend that has public and private schools, and universities changing the way they design and build.
Green building in K-12 schools began gaining momentum nationwide during the past three to four years. With help from state government, which is pushing for a reduction in greenhouse gases, it is slowly changing the way schools are built in the Capital Region.
A green building is one that minimizes harm to the environment during construction and over the building’s life by being energy, water and resource efficient. Combining common-sense design and new technology, it maximizes natural light and ventilation, uses materials with recycled content and minimizes the amount of chemicals that can pollute indoor air, making buildings healthy places for occupants. But while industry experts haven’t agreed on an official definition of a green school, most would say it goes further. For some, a high-performance school is an educational tool. Its innovative design elements are used to teach its students about recycling, renewable energy and similar topics. A green school saves thousands of dollars on energy, water and maintenance costs annually, boosts productivity and reduces staff and student absenteeism.
If California schools make green building standard practice, it could have a significant impact on the more than 6.2 million children who attend the state’s 9,821 public schools. Statewide, schools spend more than $1 billion on energy and $5 billion on new construction and renovation each year, according to state Architect David Thorman. Between 2007 and 2012, the state needs more than 29,000 new classrooms to house its students. And 72 percent of its existing classrooms are more than 25 years old, according to the state Department of Education. Nationwide, education is the fastest-growing green construction sector and, in dollars, makes up the largest portion of commercial construction, according to a 2007 McGraw-Hill Construction Green Building SmartMarket Report on education.
In California, there are two major green building programs that K-12 school districts follow: the LEED program and the nonprofit San Francisco-based Collaborative for High Performance Schools. CHPS, which has a green building program similar to LEED, has spread to seven other states. In July, it had 35 completed schools nationwide, and 29 districts had mandated the program for new construction and major modernizations. About 300 schools have projects in planning or construction nationwide. One CHPS school in the region is completed, Alder Creek Middle School in Truckee, and three more projects are in progress, according to the website and school officials. For LEED, two local public K-12 schools have been registered as of June 4, but more are planned.
School officials and other industry experts say there’s no local resistance to the idea of green building. There are obstacles, but they are diminishing as school officials learn about the benefits and design, and construction professionals become versed in LEED. The market for building materials is also adapting, offering a growing number of environmentally friendly products at a lower cost. One of the biggest obstacles, experts say, is how California public schools are funded. Money for construction and operations come from two separate pots, which emphasizes reducing the upfront cost of construction, rather than lowering maintenance and utility costs over the life of a building.
“The school agenda is driven by money and test scores, so health and sustainability issues are not right up there in the top priority of the school agenda — even though schools can actually save money by being more sustainable and can improve test scores by having a healthy, safe learning environment,” says Deborah Moore, executive director and co-founder of the Green Schools Initiative, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that works to make schools healthier and eco-friendly.
But the state, which provides public schools with a portion of their construction budgets, is making some changes. In 2006, voters passed proposition 1D — a $10.4 billion bond to upgrade K-12 schools, community colleges and state universities — setting aside $100 million as incentive grants for K-12 green construction.
The state is pushing green building in other ways. It is developing a green building code that will apply to public and private schools of all levels. If adopted this year, it would go into effect in 2009 as a voluntary measure, which could become mandatory in 2010. The state also is developing a program that would help K-12 schools generate as much energy as they use in a year. The so-called grid neutrality plan could save $21.5 million in energy costs and as much as 30,000 tons of carbon emissions per year, according to a white paper the state architect wrote in December.
While building green schools has taken off in the past three to four years, it’s not a new concept. Turn-of-the-century American schools were inherently green, with lots of light and operable windows that allowed fresh air in, says Kip Grubb, principal and director of K-12 design at Stafford King Wiese Architects in Sacramento. They were often multistoried, taking up little space. In the 1940s and 1950s, schools became land hogs, spreading out with many single-story buildings. Air conditioning was introduced in the 1970s, igniting fears — especially with the energy crisis — of wasted money. Windows were boarded up and big-box schools were built with few windows. The tighter schools got, the worse air quality became. Flat lights mounted in ceilings replaced drop lights, diminishing light quality. “They were dark and foreboding places,” says Grubb, who is designing Morgan Creek Elementary School for the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District. The district is pursuing LEED status for the Roseville school.
About 60 million children and 6 million adults spend much of their time inside 120,000 public and private schools, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, many of which are in poor condition and struggle with poor indoor air quality. “Indoor air pollution is one of the most significant environmental health risks we face,” says David Rowson, director of the EPA’s Center for Asthma and Schools.
Indoor air pollution can be two to five times as high as outdoor pollution and can lead to headaches, dizziness, fatigue, asthma and other health problems. It also can interfere with learning and productivity. Nearly 15 million missed school days are due to asthma, the leading cause of absenteeism for students. About 6 million school-age children, or one in 13, have asthma, Rowson says.
Traditionally, school construction has aimed for the lowest cost and minimum performance rather than enhancing health and comfort, writes Gregory Kats in his 2006 study, Greening America’s Schools: Costs and Benefits, which looks at 30 green K-12 schools. With shrinking budgets and a growing number of students, cost has been a major obstacle preventing educators from building green schools, he writes. Kats found it costs less than 2 percent more — about $3 more per square foot — to build a green school over a conventional one. But he calculated savings in energy, water, health and other costs at about $70 a square foot. It’s now riskier not to build green schools, says Kats, managing director of Good Energies in Washington, an investment firm in the renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries.
The green building movement is changing how schools are designed and built, but it isn’t mainstream yet. Most local school districts are thinking about green building, but some may be built out or don’t have imminent projects, says Laura Knauss, a principal and leader of K-12 design at Lionakis in Sacramento. While changing new construction is important, she says, the bigger challenge is to focus on renovating existing schools into healthier and more resource-efficient places.
Local school districts are building green to different degrees. Roseville Joint Union High School District has been using green building strategies for the past seven years but not always seeking recognition for it, says Christopher Grimes, the district’s director of facilities development. Grimes says the district has struggled with green design. A pilot project with waterless urinals was removed when there was trouble with maintenance. When rebuilding Adelante High School last year, there was limited recycling during construction because the contractor was new to green building. The district missed CHPS certification at Adelante because its HVAC system failed to exceed the state’s energy code by the required amount.
Dry Creek Joint Elementary and Natomas Unified school districts mandate using the CHPS criteria for all building projects. Administrators from Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, which has a CHPS school, and Vacaville Unified School District, which plans to build a LEED- and CHPS-certified elementary school, say they want to make green building a district policy.
School districts that have built green say they’re reaping the benefits. Alder Creek Middle School in Truckee is 73 percent larger than the school it replaced, but energy bills have stayed the same, says Rob Koster, the school district’s project manager. The Academic Performance Index, a state measurement for test scores, rose 65 points to 841 since students moved in four years ago.
Natomas Unified built Inderkum High School as a high-performance green school in 2004. It’s the same size as Natomas High School, built in the 1990s, but energy costs are at least one-third lower, says Michael Cannon, the school district’s assistant superintendent of facilities and planning.
“All children should have the chance … to learn in a space that is going to be healthy for them to be in and promote good academic achievement,” says Kristin Heinen, assistant director of CHPS. “That’s the right of every child. It shouldn’t be just for school districts that can afford it.”
A higher education for green design
by Joanna Corman
Local community colleges and universities are embracing green building. While energy conservation is not new, in recent years, colleges have started taking a more holistic approach.
Many community colleges are using guidelines outlined in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. However, they’re choosing not to pursue certification because of the added cost, says Dave Younger, a principal specializing in college design with Lionakis, an architectural firm in Sacramento. While no higher education projects in the Sacramento area had achieved LEED certification as of June 4, only three local colleges — UC Davis, Sacramento State and University of the Pacific — had registered projects with the U.S. Green Building Council, the Washington-based nonprofit that developed the program.
In an effort to reduce greenhouse gases and demand on the state’s electrical grid, the California Community Colleges Board of Governors passed its first energy and sustainability policy in January. The policy encourages the state’s 72 community college districts to use LEED guidelines for new construction and major renovations. It also designates a small percentage of money for state-funded new construction or major renovations beginning in 2010 if they exceed the state energy code. The incentive money depends on the proposal and passage of a state bond, says Frederick E. Harris, assistant vice chancellor of college finance and facilities planning. The funding is meant to persuade more colleges to build in a more sustainable way by covering any extra upfront cost that green building may incur.
With nearly $19 billion in local and state bond money available for construction since November 2000, the system is undergoing a “renaissance” of new building and renovation, Harris says. The state’s 109 colleges are experiencing heavy student growth and need roughly $30 billion in construction over the next decade.
Individual colleges follow their own policies. Sierra College is pursuing LEED silver status for its Truckee campus, scheduled for completion this month, says Younger, the project’s head architect. Los Rios Community College District — American River, Cosumnes River, Folsom Lake and Sacramento City colleges — follows LEED guidelines, pursuing a minimum silver level, but forgoes actual certification because of the cost, says Pablo Manzo, the district’s associate vice chancellor of facilities management.
“Any money we pull out of a project [for certification] is money that we pull out of the actual building,” he says. “We would rather spend money in the building and pursue those measures without having to go through the documentation process.”
Several years ago, UC Davis and other UC campuses developed a green building program equivalent to LEED that administrators felt better suited the university setting. The school, which has about 100 projects in design or construction at any given time, also uses the actual LEED system and has nine projects that are either registered or designated for registration this year. UC Davis and the UC system are discussing adopting a policy that would require LEED certification for all construction projects, says Gary Dahl, interim director of architecture at UC Davis.
The California State University system has mandated energy conservation for more than two decades, but a 2006 executive order requires reaching the lowest LEED level and encourages campuses to build to LEED silver. Achieving certification, however, is not required.
Sacramento State uses LEED guidelines for all construction and has three registered projects. Despite adding more square feet, the school is reducing its energy use through conservation projects and more energy-efficient construction, says Energy Conservation Coordinator Nathaniel Martin.
