Green Schools

You can’t grow up with my dad, you can’t even know my dad, and not select green anything to blog about... he was into conserving and reusing WAY before it was “cool.” Part of learning to drive for the four of us was learning how to drive efficiently. If you slosh the imaginary water in the imaginary glass on the dashboard, you have accelerated or braked too quickly and used too much fuel! Thermostats have always been set more for efficiency than for comfort; my mother insists that part is more stubbornness than conserving. :) I have gotten many a letter from him that was written in the margins of the agenda from some meeting he was in; printing the agenda was a waste of paper and now the paper was being used. When economic woes caused schools to look for ways of conserving, I was ready!

My school is new, but not new enough to be designated a green school. The article’s author said those new green schools aren’t so green after all, so we can just stick with our own efforts. In February of this year, all the faculty and staff in my system received e-mail from the superintendent outlining ways to conserve energy. Suggestions included turning off lights, adjusting thermostats, etc. (Already doing that... remember my dad?)

One of the clubs at my school sponsors a paper recycling program. Each teacher who wants them has small bins in their rooms for paper and there are large bins in all the teacher work areas. This time of year, as teachers and students clean out lockers and file cabinets, the bins fill up quickly! I asked one of the club’s sponsors about plastic bottle recycling and he said he would love to do that too, but they had sanitary issues with students handling all those bottles used by all those different students. He’s got a point! (I always refill water bottles, but this year I had a student who did. Way to go D!)

We’re working on recycling and that’s great. Now let’s work on just simply not using so much. WAY too much paper is used in schools! For example, some teachers ran off exam schedules for students. Instead, we could project it for students to read as they enter class, post it in the classroom, e-mail it to parents, and post it on our websites. (Yep, I did ‘em all. I’m true to my raising!) Now if we’ll just cut back on handouts to teachers...