Why Energy Efficient School Construction?

Schools that are designed to be healthy and energy efficient provide benefits for students, staff, and districts. Many state and national models show the benefits of these buildings, including:

• Higher test scores
• Increased average daily attendance
• Reduced operation and maintenance costs
• Lower utility bills
• Increased teacher satisfaction and retention
• Reduced liability
• Less negative environmental impact

Current funding mechanisms do not encourage building schools that promote long-term energy savings, even though energy costs are an enormous expense for our state's schools and research shows that healthy, high-performance schools support better education.

Investing in high performing school facilities is the right choice but can come with modest additional upfront cost. As with most any energy efficiency upgrades, these added costs pay for themselves in a short amount of time. This Act provides mechanisms to offset the upfront costs and demonstrate more responsible stewardship of resources in the places where it is most important to provide good examples: in our schools.