#sbcsc

South Bend Community Schools has a major budget shortfall.  Already spending less money on instruction than other school districts, it has been often said that the corporation wants to make cuts as "far away from students as possible."  One way that schools can do that is to focus on energy.  While the SBCSC does a great job of high level energy management, meaning they've closely examined equipment and envelop upgrades, pursuing occupant optimization and renewable energy possibilities have not been fully explored.

Energy is an expense that is often cited as a "cost of doing business," but many of those costs can be eliminated through better management.  Becoming more energy efficient is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce energy costs.  Occupant optimization is a two pronged approach in energy efficiency: 1) Training staff to be more aware of how they use energy and tactics to be more energy efficient  2) Empowering staff to bring their energy efficiency observations forward and apply those.

Another energy opportunity is to pursue renewable energy.  With a total of 33 schools with a roof area in the hundreds of thousands of square feet per school, there is ample opportunity for the SBCSC to take advantage of their underutilized roof area.  A couple of things make this solution feasible: 1) schools use more of their energy during the day, when the panels are making energy  2) Looking at individual schools, it might be difficult to pursue solar energy, but system-wide there's a lot more potential.

Funding has always been a stumbling block for these types of projects. However, aside from rebates and grants, a few options are surfacing.  Property Assessed Clean Energy Programs (PACE) can finance 100% of their project and pay it back over time as a voluntary property tax assessment through their existing property tax bill.  In this way, projects are net positive cash flowed from day one.  Indiana is currently working on setting up a PACE program.  Another type of funding is external investors, known as Energy Service Companies (ESCO) who would pay to develop the solar system, and get paid by through a portion of energy savings in a process known as Energy Performance Contracting.  

In addition, from the Natural Resources Defense Council:

The National Solar Schools Consortium launched yesterday at the opening of the widely-attended National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference. Still in its infancy, the goal of the Consortium is to act as a unified voice for the growing solar schools movement, promoting the use of solar energy on K-12 and post-secondary schools, consolidating and coordinating current and future solar curriculum and resource development, and providing tools designed to help schools explore solar energy options both on campus and in the surrounding community.

"Sustainable development requires much broader public awareness and understanding of the natural resource and economic challenges facing the world in the 21st century. [Education institutions] are significant, but largely overlooked leverage point in the transition to a sustainable world." - Toward Zero Carbon, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill

Environmental learning programs foster STEM focused curriculum, but enable creative approaches promoting expanded learning opportunities (outside of textbooks).

Greene Intermediate Center

Has been in the process of transitioning to an agriscience based magnet school for about a year now.  As the South Bend Community School Corporation distills this methodology, the potential to create a network of environmental learning programs throughout the school system is great.  This network would reduce the burden of programming and take the benefits to a much larger level, allowing for a much broader implementation of the curriculum.  

Because this type of curriculum benefits both students and their parents, dramatic improvements to both energy efficiency and environmental/ecologic health.  In terms of energy, being more efficient is the cheapest and fastest energy savings we have.  This can be effectively taught at the elementary school level, ensuring massive energy savings long term, both residentially and commercially.  The same impact on environmental systems can be realized.  In just Greene Intermediate's case, the school sits positioned on a drainage ditch that connects directly to the Kankakee River, which then connects to the Mississippi River and the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico.  The amelioration efforts on the property to that drainage ditch can truly have global connections.