There’s a shiny green report card out in Warren County, Kentucky this month.

The county’s school district won the Alliance to Save Energy’s 2009 Andromeda Award for its programs, which include $4 million in energy savings over the last five years, a 28 percent energy use reduction, a daily curriculum that focuses on energy efficiency and Energy Star ratings on four buildings. But the star of their show undoubtedly is the new Richardsville Elementary, a Warren County School on target to become the nation’s first net zero energy public school when it opens in fall of 2010 (see photo above).

“This is a project that’s near and dear to us,” said Mark Ryles, Director of the Division of Facilities Management for the Kentucky Department of Education. “There were many hands in it. There was a very clear mission, which was to develop and design a net zero school building” and to  “enhance the educational opportunities,” he said.

“We were tickled to death that Warren County had won,” said project architect Kenny Stanfield with the firm of Sherman, Carter, Barnhart. In fact, the district beat out 15 other nominations that ranged from projects involving water heating technology to green condos to a Los Angeles Community College sustainable building effort across its nine campuses.

“Warren County has been a leader for a while, but this is really recognizing all of their efforts so that’s tremendous,” Stanfield said.

In planning the new building, engineers, school facilities management and architects had to first focus on all the areas in which energy could be saved, and then decide how to generate the rest. As a result, the elementary school will have exterior walls built of insulated concrete and Styrofoam, a geothermal HVAC and water-heating system, an air-monitoring system that regulates ventilation to the outdoors, and a north-south orientation with skylights and clerestory windows that pour daylight into classrooms, the gymnasium, the media center and the cafeteria. Overall, the building is expected to consume about 75 percent less energy than the national average for school buildings. (see interior image, right)

More than 40,000 square feet of solar panels take over from there. Mounted on the rooftop and support structures, the solar panels will generate electricity the school needs and send any extra to the grid. While there will be times when the school needs more than it generates, the two should balance on an annual basis. That’s the net-zero thesis at work.

Kentucky is clearly doing something right. They began building geothermal systems for heating and cooling their schools in 1990; other initiatives followed. As of Jan. 30, the state has a dozen Energy-Star certified K-12 schools, according to its own website. And as some newer schools began to exceed the goals set by Energy Star – and even the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEEDS platinum rating — the possibility of a net-zero school took hold.

“We believe that this was a logical step for us. It wasn’t an anomaly,” Ryles said.

The average energy nationwide for schools is about 73 kBTUs per square foot. Kentucky was building schools that were ending up in the 40s, then the 30s, Ryles said. And then a little accidental catalyst called Plano Elementary went up in Warren County.

“Plano kind of flew under everyone’s radar,” said Ryles. It was using just 28 kBTUs per square foot. “At that point if you drew a line across the chart, the next stop was net zero.”

He and engineer Ken Seibert began kicking the idea around. One day, Seibert called and said he had something to show Ryles. The state department of energy got wind of the meeting, and asked if they could bring some people along to listen, folks from state government, big universities, and energy providers. Ryles brought a couple of guests of his own – Warren and Kenton county school representatives. Before he knew it, Seibert was making his presentation to 25 or 30 folks.

“Mr. Seibert put on a show that was fabulous,” Ryles said. “He demonstrated a hypothetical way it would work, he showed us the engineering model, then showed us the business model. It was unbelievable.”

They were all in the same room. Warren and Kenton counties wanted in. Richardsville Elementary – and two other schools, Bristow in Warren County and Turkeyfoot in Kenton County – would soon be on the net zero design boards.

Turning the idea into reality faced some challenges: With school boards and cities and states and private businesses, it can be hard to get everybody to work together. There are various intersecting rules and regulations, and everyone has a territory to call their own. Negotiating new projects through all that red tape and ownership can be sticky.

Going green” may be all the rage these days, whether it’s at a school, hospital, office or municipality. At Solomon Schechter School in Westchester County, N.Y., “green” has been part of the philosophy from the start.

Founded in 1966, the conservative Jewish day school serves nearly 1,000 students. It incorporates the environment not just in the curriculum but in every day life, says chief operating officer Rahel Rosner.

“Our philosophy is based on the Hebrew expression “Min Ha’ Aretz,” meaning “with the earth,” she says.

“We’ve always lived with the earth, “ says Rosner, explaining that it is part of the Jewish culture. The K-12 school has two campuses – one located in White Plains for K-6; the other located in Hartsdale for 7-12. Each site is comprised of about 24 acres that are heavily wooded and well-maintained for nature walks.

“We come at green from two angles, religion and science,” says Rosner. The Judaic and science teachers offer a class, ‘About the Earth,’ in which the students have fun learning how religion and science work together. In one session, the kids make cheese by stirring it with a fig branch, Rosner says. “The fig tree is important in both religion and science. Figs are considered to be one of the seven species that dominated the diet of the Jews in biblical Israel. They were one of the staple foods. This way the kids understand how they are part of the earth.”

Even a simple thing as eating has meaning, says principal Nellie Harris. “Our Jewish texts call on us to be mindful of the food that comes from the earth and not take it for granted. Eating is a sacred event, it is not mindless, but mindful.” She points that out that the eating of kosher food, which minimizes the eating of animals, has this mindfulness at its core.

Rosner, who has been with the school about five years, is very proud of the school’s two 50-kilowatt solar panel systems. A third system is planned for this summer. The panels were made possible in part with state funding. “We generate electricity and also sell back to the grid,” she says. The best part?

The solar installation is cost neutral, she says.

Rosner wants to spread the word to other schools about solar installations, which she says is possible despite the initial costs.

“Initially, we couldn’t afford the $500,000 solar panels,” says Rosner. “But we first received a $250,000 grant from the state of New York. Then we developed a roof lease program – in conjunction with Mercury Solar, an alternative energy company — in which we lease our roof to a for-profit organization that in turn could get the tax credit. This took off another 50 percent of the cost. We were able to lock into a utility rate for the next 10 years meaning our energy rate will stay the same, no increases.”

Barack Obama has been getting an earful from environmental leaders wanting changes for the nation. Now, thanks to Sidwell Friends School, where his daughters are enrolled, he’ll no doubt be hearing from Malia and Sasha about ways the Obama family can green it up at the White House.

Sidwell, an elite private institution with Quaker roots, has become one of the nation’s most ecologically active schools, offering an education where environmental stewardship is foremost and the buildings are being reborn as models of green construction.

The Sidwell Friends Middle School, renovated in 2006, is the country’s highest rated LEED-honored school, with a platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designation from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The 33,500-square-foot building was 55 years old when a trustee who’d seen a documentary of architect Bill McDonough’s sustainable designs suggested the green remodeling.

“He insisted that we look at this green building movement. Once this started, the project went to the board and the faculty and eventually became a reality,” says middle school building tour guide Lori Hardenbergh.

The refurbished structure (along with a 39,000 square-foot addition) designed by Philadelphia architects KieranTimberlake, serves 350 students.

According to the USGBC, the school earned the platinum rating by reducing municipal water use by 90 percent; using 60 percent less energy than a conventional school; and planting 80 percent more native plant species on site.

“The kids embrace it [the green initiative],” says Dave Wood, who teaches 8th grade science. “Our strategy is to pick fun and interesting activities and show kids how science is totally relevant and ties into their lives…They need to know how people affect the environment.” All 100 8th graders take the environmental science class. A 25-year-veteran at Sidwell, Wood teaches four of these classes; his wife Margaret Pennock, teaches the other two.

The environment is incorporated into all aspects at Sidwell, from its curriculum and food service to housekeeping and energy consumption. The school not only teaches its students about the environment but thanks to its construction, showcases the importance of green living.

“Eighth grade students get involved by doing tours for all sorts of groups, from student field trips to architects from Canada,” says Hardenbergh, who’s in her fifth year at Sidwell. “Not only do the students learn in the classroom, but they then have an opportunity to share [the green message] with others.”

Part of the philosophy behind a green building is showing how a building works, says Wood. There are different areas on campus where the kids can see exposed pipes and vents. One of the upcoming 8th grade projects will be for the kids to come with signs or maybe a game to explain to visitors how these pipes and vents work.

Environmental stewardship is integral to the Quaker philosophy on which the school was founded. Assistant Head of School Mike Saxenian is pleased with his school’s “green tilt,” telling the USGBC, “The building is a great expression of our core values, a great environment for students to learn and faculty to work.”

It’s back to the books for kids across America and going green in the classroom has never been so easy. With the help of a popular program called the Go Green Initiative, teachers have quick and simple access online to all the tools and resources needed to green a classroom, an entire school, or even a school-district.

Serving as the charter and flagship school for the Go Green Initiative, Walnut Grove Elementary School, in Pleasanton, Calif., first found out about the program in 2002 when Jill Buck, a mother of three, and PTA president, got creative and began asking “What else could we do to go green?”

“The school was doing some gardening, composting and recycling, but I wanted to do more, so I sat down at my kitchen table and started writing up the initiative,” said Ms. Buck (pictured left). “That was in 2002, and since then the program has just grown and grown: we’re now operating in all 50 states in the US, we’re in 13 countries, and on 4 continents; our website gets over 2 million hits a month; it’s an amazing program. Schools are finding us on the Internet and simply by word of mouth.”

Walnut Grove’s principal, Bill Radulovich, comments, “It all started here on my campus, as Jill (Buck) was my PTA president. As the charter school for this program, she first starting designing ideas to partner with waste management to help us with recycling waste, and that grew into networking and working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funds that are distributed to different programs.

“Where once we had cardboard boxes to hold are recycling items, we now have huge 55-gallon gobblers, these huge barrels with slots that are really cool. She helped us gain more methods in the form of recycling and reusing and how to be more efficient overall.”

Those seemingly small first steps towards conservation have since grown to historic proportion: Walnut Grove partnered with Honeywell, with their alternative energy division, which installed, owns and maintains solar panels on seven district buildings in their school district, selling the electricity the panels produce to them at a price significantly below its current utility rate.

“Since we started using the solar energy, we have calculated that our district, which serves around 146,000 students, has saved over $150,000 annually. That’s just since starting in 2006, and that number was calculated in May of 2007. It’s truly fantastic what’s going on here in Pleasanton, and we have educators from around the world that are coming to see what it is we’re doing, to learn and see what is going on here. This is the first time a school has gone to this extent to save on energy,” Radulovich said.

The solar technology provided by Honeywell to the Pleasanton Unified School District, located just east of the Bay Area, is expected to supply 20 percent of the district’s electricity and save an estimated $2.5 million in energy costs over the course of their 20-year contract.

Buck, executive director of the initiative. urges school districts that aspire to similar feats to go to the Go Green Initiative website.

“We provide a template for anyone to use…We have everything: worksheet templates, press releases, guides to activities, and loads of information available to download and printout, pass out to parents, schools, whatever you need. And we’re available to assist you with any problems encountered on down the road, either by telephone or e-mail, we’re there to assist you with questions or anything along the way, we have many, many resources available to share,” she says.

GETTING STARTED, A CASE STUDY

On a smaller scale, Brentwood Elementary in Austin, Texas started their Go Green Initiative this year with special education teacher, Amy Cox (pictured), who teaches primarily 2nd and 3rd graders.

“In the beginning of 2007 I began asking why we weren’t doing more to be green at school, so I began searching on the Internet for ideas; that’s when I found out about the Go Green Initiative. I did it all online; I signed up for their newsletter and then found their resources and began doing the steps to incorporate the program at school. I printed out guidelines and every week they have a school of the week, which gives me great ideas continually on activities for the kids. Its been a good resource for me,” Cox explains.

Summer’s ending and school’s recommencing — and along with the sound of bells ringing comes the simultaneous groan of kids nationwide. But this year, more American students than ever will return from vacation to a new backdrop, a green schoolhouse.

Yep, the little red school-house of yesteryear is getting a redo, making way for a 21st-century incarnation. Of this country’s 100,000 private and public schools, approximately one a day are now registering for LEED certification, according to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

These little green schoolhouses still teach the “Three R’s” (reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic), but they’ve added three more – “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.” And they’re doing it not just through energy-efficient building principles or water-conserving whiz-bangs, but through curricula, community-outreach projects, cafeterias, landscaping, new buses and transportation policies. One school in Oregon, Clackamas High School, has a city-wide cellphone battery recycling program and last year planted its own orchard.

The greening of America’s schools is a phenomenon to behold. Less than four years ago, Arizona and Washington state were two of the first to require all new public building construction meet LEED Silver requirements. Now dozens of states have green ground rules for schools. New York prohibits the use of non-green cleaners, while its neighbor New Jersey has mandated that all new schools be built to LEED specs. The 58 member schools of the Kentucky Green and Healthy Schools Program marked the project’s first anniversary this year (Kentucky made national news when it banned the sale of non-cafeteria foods on campus a couple of years ago).

Even foot-dragging Washington D.C. has gotten involved. The U.S. House Representatives created a Green Schools Caucus last November and now has more than 50 members. Earlier this summer, the House passed a bill that, if dovetailed with a similar Senate one, would fund $20 billion over the next five years. Known as “the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act,” it would help states construct new schools or renovate existing ones to make them healthier, more energy efficient and better for the environment.

But the numbers say it all. Since 2007, when the USGBC launched its LEED for Schools –- which has additional specs for things like acoustics and mold control (see USGBC for specs)– more than 78 schools have been certified and more than 750 have registered for certification. Its Green Schools Map illustrates how wide-spread the greening of America’s schools has become.

One of the first was the 220,000-square-foot Desert Edge High School campus (pictured left), part of the Agua Fria school district outside of Phoenix, in the burb of Goodyear. Built in two phases between 2002 and 2005, with the second, complementary phase turning out its first graduates in 2006, Desert High was the first school in Arizona to receive a LEED Silver rating, the fourth in the country and, according to multiple sources including the U.S. Department of Energy, the fifth in the world.

Since then, Agua Fria has built a second, even greener school, Verrado High (pictured right and far top), which opened in 2006 and is awaiting its LEED approval. (No problem, says the district’s assistant superintendent John Schmadeke. “We’re certain that will be another one.”)

In fact, since undertaking the Desert Edge extension, the entire school district has greened up its act and is waiting for the funds to build a third uber-green (LEED Silver) high school in 2009 or 2010. Already, Desert Edge has received kudos nationwide, such as The Green Guide’s most recent “Top Ten Greenest Schools” (2006), as well as special recognition from Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.

“All that’s really cool,” adds Schmadeke, who was in on the ground floor of his community’s ambitious mission. “I mean, these things kind of come and go, but we’re really in it for the kids. We keep making it better for them –- the best we can. But what matters is graduation rates and kids getting a good education in a healthy environment.”