Across the Council Rock School District (CRSD), located just north of Philadelphia, elementary to high school students have become energy and environmental activists. In less than two years, an energy and environmental-focused curriculum has led to a major cultural shift, and students are not just learning about but championing energy policies. 

However, the grassroots Go Green program at CRSD did not originate in the classroom, but in the boiler rooms, with the HVAC and electrical systems in each of the 17 buildings spread across the districts 72 square miles, and in the IT wiring closets connecting all of these systems. 

CRSD includes ten elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools, and participates in the local vocational-technical school. The district services about 12,400 students, K-12, and has 1,400 full-time staff, including teachers, supervisors, clerical, custodial, maintenance, and cafeteria employees. It is the ninth largest school district in Pennsylvania and the largest employer in the area. Like many school districts struggling in todays economic climate, CRSD faces budget shortfalls and the specter of cutting school programs, staff layoffs, or asking for tax increases.

When the new district superintendent, Mark Klein, came on board in 2002, he charged his staff with benchmarking all aspects of operations against industry best practices. Robert Schoch, CRSD's Director of Business Administration, presented a proposal for saving energy by measuring, monitoring, and controlling all of the heating, cooling, and electrical systems across the district. 

Matt Frederickson and his IT team created a network-based system that provides Web-based access for maintenance staff to monitor and control the HVAC systems in each building and across the campus, precisely adjusting energy usage to actual needs. In December 2005, CRSD began actively managing their energy consumption, hoping to save at least 10 to 15 percent in energy costs. To date, network-based control of energy systems has cut consumption by 42.7 percent, preserving an astounding $5.3 million for the district's budget. The environmental impact of the energy conservation has kept 24,278,000 lbs of CO2 from the environment and saved about 24,500 barrels of oil.

The district is now saving in excess of $2 million per year against its original projected energy costs. This has allowed CRSD to preserve educational programs that might otherwise have been vulnerable to budget reduction. To understand the magnitude of the savings, it is equivalent to the entire cost of the districts extracurricular program. Continued savings would cover a plan to update or replace 5,000 computers on a 4-year replacement schedule. It can even cover the annual payments on a bond issue to renovate an entire elementary school and extend its life expectancy for another 40 years. 

The Go Green program has ignited the passion and involvement of students to a degree that school officials never imagined, proposing new ways to save energy and the environment. "Green teams" in each school are involved in efforts like recycling paper, starting ecology clubs, planting meadows, and fundraising to donate trees to the PA Parks and Forest Foundation. In fact it was some of these students who spoke in Washington, D.C., when CRSD was awarded the ENERGY STAR® "Partner of the Year 2008." The district has just received this honor for the second year in a row.

In an almost completely organic way, CRSD has developed an ecosystem in which energy conservation is helping to power education, and now education is powering energy conservation, and technology powers both. The result is a truly sustainable and replicable program involving students, teachers, administration, parents, and the community. 

CRSD believed in the groundbreaking potential of its energy reduction program, but also recognized that it lacked the experience to ensure success. The district elected to partner with Aramark Education to develop and execute a roadmap, which involved operational improvements, staff training, and repairs to HVAC equipment field controls. 

Aramark reached out to the district's IT team, making it clear that the expected returns would be greatly diminished without network-based control over all of the district's HVAC systems. "If technicians had to drive from building to building taking measurements and resetting controls, the gains would be far more modest," says Frederickson. "Fortunately, we had some great news for the Aramark consultants."

Three years earlier, the IT department had undertaken its own best practice assessment of the technology infrastructure. Frederickson found that the district was almost technophobic because of ongoing reliability problems and frustrating limitations with information sharing. Teachers told Frederickson that if the network was available three days a week, it was considered a good week. Each building was on a separate network domain, so there was no way to share information across the district, or sometimes even across a hallway. The plan for wireless "clouds" in every building had only gone as far as a single wireless access point in each library. IP phones had been purchased but never unpacked.

Frederickson standardized on a Cisco network to make network management easier and more cost-effective and enable end-to-end information sharing across the district. The unreliable ATM wide-area network (WAN) was replaced with a gigabyte fiber backbone, with Cisco switches at the core and in all of the building wiring closets. The "great news" for the Go Green project was that bringing the HVAC systems online simply required running a cable from the controllers to the switches in each building's wiring closets. The IT team installed Johnson Controls and Siemens software running on a server at the network operations center (NOC). 

Over 200 wireless access points have created true wireless clouds in each building, enabling maintenance engineers to use laptops and a secure Web-based interface to check, diagnose, and adjust any HVAC system in a building or any building in the district  from any location, even from home.  

CRSDs supervisor of operational services, Tom Schneider, illustrates how network-based control has saved tens of thousands of dollars with a mouse click. "Over Thanksgiving and winter break last year we set the whole district to unoccupied mode, dropping the temperature to 55 degrees. We compared the energy usage to the previous year, and even though the temperature was actually an average of 4 degrees colder, we saved $64,000 more in energy over those 14 days." Warm days are opportunities for savings, too. "The 2008 Thanksgiving break turned out to be unseasonably warm, so we remotely shut off heating in all the buildings."

One of the facilities engineers recently developed a software program that connects the parking lot lights to the NOC. Developing the program in-house saved approximately $35,000, and Schneider expects to save thousands of dollars by curtailing parking lot lighting when there are no big events at the schools.

Most important, the students, teachers, parents, and, increasingly the community are finding ways to promote energy conservation. Mobilized by the Green Teams, students have championed energy saving measures like putting stickers on light switches to remind the last person out the door to shut off lights, and drawing blinds to reduce the load on air conditioners. Students are even sacrificing designer labels for a higher EPA rating, wearing warmer clothes to show their support for lower temperatures in the classrooms.

Yes

Yes

Energy curtailment has had a major impact on school budgets at a time when budgets are shrinking and energy costs are rising. No one expected that a relatively modest investment could yield savings substantial enough to save educational programs, and have such a significant impact on the district's environmental footprint. 

Each week, the district posts a new energy report online that shows district performance and energy curtailment results for the whole district and even down to the school level. Students, teachers, parents, and the community can see the Go Green impact in terms of money preserved for the school budget ($5,032,000 saved through December 2008), energy reduction improvements over the prior year (42.7% over 34.1% in 2007), environmental impact (24,500 barrels of oil saved), the district's rising Energy Star Rating (currently 56), and the contribution to the community (enough electricity saved to power 1,340 homes for a year).

Constant online monitoring of building HVAC systems has also uncovered problems with equipment, like condensers or air handling units, which might normally go unnoticed. These undetected problems have not only affected energy usage but, as the district discovered, air quality. "One system can work overtime and compensate for another system, and that problem can go undetected for years," says Schneider. Unable to find the cause of air quality issues, the district paid to install air conditioners. Within months of bringing the network-based monitoring systems online, the maintenance teams located the source of the problems and were able to adjust the ventilation properly and eliminate the added air conditioning expenses.

The IT department is still finding ways to "Go Green" with the district's technology assets. There are over 5,000 PCs in computer labs, classrooms, and administrative offices. By turning off the desktop PCs for 12 hours a day remotely for just 1,700 of these computers, Frederickson estimates that the district will save an additional $85,000 a year. Turning the PCs off on snow days and holidays can augment these savings. In addition, as funds from the energy saving program become available to replace older PCs, Frederickson's priority will be to first replace desktop PCs that do not have a Wake-on-LAN, to ensure that computers in hibernate or shutdown mode can be powered up for distribution of software updates. As part of the district's procurement policy, computers and other equipment are required to be ENERGY STAR® labeled.

"The culture shift that we see happening at every grade and every part of the school has allowed us to think of anything that draws power from any source as something we can manage to save energy," says Frederickson. The school's IP phone system, for example, is powered by electricity from the wiring closet switches. "If I leave my office for the day, I can shut down my IP phone and still have my calls forwarded or get my voice mail. With centralized control of all the IP phones in the district, we can save money by powering down the phones without losing access to vital phone services." Similarly, the IT group recently added a controller module in the core switch that will allow them to power down all of the wireless access points across the district when the schools are unoccupied. 

"It is not just about the administration's targets for energy curtailment," says Frederickson. "Now we have students who are thinking about ways to save $10 a year, and if you multiply that effort by 13,000 students, teachers, and other staff, you can have just as big an impact."

Each school is in the process of setting up "Get Your Green On" Web page, where the Go Green teams publicize events and achievements. On the Rolling Hills Elementary School page, just click on the home page to have five trees donated to the state of Pennsylvania. On the Richboro Elementary School Green Team page, you can see pictures of the Ecology Club's "The Earth Laughs in Flowers" meadow, planted by the schoolchildren to reduce the fossil fuel needed to mow grass in the summer. The district is now following the student's lead, and plans to let 40 acres of cultivated land return to natural meadows to reduce mowing.

CR High School South has increased its paper recycling by two tons every two weeks, and is conserving paper through two-sided printing and converting to electronic reservations in the library over paper. The online "Recycling Scoreboard" shows that CR High School South saved 67,536 KWH of energy in 2008 compared to 24,302 KWH in 2007, and saved 110 yards of landfill compared to 39 yard of landfill in 2007. 

The students have not only advocated recycling bins in each classroom but also reached out to the community with recycling programs. They have also become environmental educators, publishing articles online for the community about recycling, plastic six-pack rings, and energy efficient appliances. 

"Today, we'd be hard-pressed to say which is the prouder or more notable achievement of the Go Green program  the money we save by controlling our energy or the energetic response by our students to conservation and the environment," says Klein. 

Theodore Caputi, a seventh grader at Newtown Middle School, won an energy management scholarship for his essay on why CRSD should be a leader in energy conservation, writing: "As our country is nearing economic and ecologic crisis, schools can no longer only teach traditional classroom subjects. Districts must act in a tangible, visible way to conserve fossil fuels. By leading the effort for energy conservation, schools would surely pass this value on to their students, and the next generation will accept energy conscious behaviors as a part of daily life. Energy conservation has no downside and can only benefit schools by reducing energy spending, reducing the depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels, and teaching students a valuable lesson about living in a world with very limited resources."

Theodore was one of the students who traveled to Washington, D.C., to represent his district when it was awarded the Energy Star Partner of the Year 2008. Superintendent Klein felt strongly that the students should be involved in the ceremony, in recognition of the part they have played in making sustainable changes in their schools and communities. Klein recounts that when the students got up to address a bustling banquet room of Fortune 500 executives, government officials, and energy experts, the whole room fell respectfully quiet, and "you could hear a pin drop." 

"Council Rock has done far more than save money or energy for itself  the district has taught a future generation the importance of conservation and green living," says Theodore about his participation in the Go Green program. "By involving students, faculty and staff in our 'Going Green' program, we've exposed our entire school district to environmentally friendly habits in hopes of making them ritual for generations to come."

There are several things that have made CRSD's Go Green program noteworthy. One is the short amount of time from plan to performance, demonstrating a 40 percent reduction in only two years. Another factor is investment costs, according to Bob Schoch. "Other schools have looked into energy conservation, but the investments costs proved to be high. The total capital improvement budget allocated for our program was $500,000, but we actually used only about $150,000 to implement a program that has yielded over $5 million in cost curtailments in 36 months." 

A third distinction is that this is a data driven program that continually uses internal and external benchmarking to measure its success. Schoch credits data transparency and regular public reporting of program successes or failures with promoting a problem-solving mentality and building momentum. 

Technology is another essential component: the program success depends on modern building systems using the right technology and investing in training maintenance staff to become proficient in energy management. Technology is also used extensively to communicate program results, which is critical to motivating the school community to support the program.
 
Another aspect of sustainability is that the program has been embraced not only by the administration but also teachers, students, PTOs, and the community. "The Go Green program has affected nearly every aspect of district performance, and has the potential to influence other school districts struggling with rising energy costs and budget shortfalls," says Schoch.

The cultural change has been swift, but did not happen overnight and not without the active participation of the school's science department. Pat Armillei, Science District Coordinator, attended the superintendent's inaugural meeting about the "Greening" of the district in 2006. Armillei became a major catalyst in turning commitment into curriculum, and curriculum into sustainable cultural change. "The Green Teams have expanded each year, with more teachers and support staff coming on board. In 2007, our first PTO and PTA members joined the Green Teams. By 2009, every school has started an active ecology club. One club blossomed from four students to 150 students in a single year," says Armillei.

Faculty websites allow assignments to be posted online rather than distributed, E-Friday folders for parents have replaced paper flyers, and computers school wide have been switched to "low ink" mode and double sided printing to save both paper and toner. 

"We review the data collected at the 'Going Green' meetings and I am amazed at what the HVAC software, astronomical timers, and some of the other technologies can accomplish," says Keith Wigglesworth, Newtown Middle School, 7th grade environmental science teacher. "This combined with the diligence of the student body, faculty, and IT and maintenance staff have taken a fifty-four year old building and made it the only energy star rated facility in the district!"

Resistance, of course, has been inevitable. Only a few of the 40-person maintenance staff were skilled or motivated, and there was tension early on between maintenance staff and Aramark contractors. To overcome this challenge, the district invested in its staff through training programs, recognizing that modern, energy efficient systems require a much higher skill level than was needed in the past.

Exceeded

The substantial return on the district's modest investment and the data-driven benchmarking approach has attracted the attention of numerous professional organizations and other school districts. In addition to being recognized by the EPA as an Energy Start Partner of the Year for two years in a row, CRSD was awarded the 2007 Pinnacle of Achievement by the Association of School Business Officials International. School representatives and students have shared the Go Green vision with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the New York City's Mayor's office, and presented at the 2009 National Science Teacher Convention and an EPA-hosted Webinar on energy management that attracted over 800 participants.

Closer to home, superintendent Klein is delighted that several other districts in Pennsylvania have been in contact with him to find out more about the program. "We made our share of failed attempts at a sustainable energy conservation model, but now we have a replicable, measurable program to offer other schools. By bringing together best practices in energy management and IT, we believe we have developed a program that other schools can adopt to help deal with fiscal pressures and environmental imperatives. That's a gratifying contribution that reaches beyond the boundaries of our district."

Not every teacher wants to give up control over the thermostats in their classroom, and not every student at CRSD is a passionate environmentalist. Communication continues to be the key to involvement, including assessing performance and recognizing achievements. "The district is constantly promoting achievements through various media, including newsletters, its web site, closed-circuit and public television broadcasts, committee meetings, and visits to schools," says Armillei, "This education is critical because the district has discovered that success in any particular building depends on the active involvement of the administration, the teachers, the students, the building managers, and the custodians."

"I've been a teacher for 19 years and I've never seen anything capture the imagination and passion of students like the Go Green program," says Renee Devlin, an AP Bio/Chem teacher at CRHS-South. Devlin currently has a student working on a graduation project with the USA National Phenology Network, which brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit groups, educators and students of all ages to monitor the impacts of climate change on plants and animals in the United States. Devlin's student is recording data of plants and animals, like the first sighting of a robin or a dogwood tree in bloom, to enter in the phenology data base to help researchers track climate change. 
"Going Green isn't just about grades or tests to the students," says Devlin. "They are the ones championing recycling, shutting off lights when they leave the classroom, and even dressing for energy conservation over style! Who would have thought that energy conservation could trump fashion in high school? I never would have believed it."