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Follow on Google News | HowToGreenSchools.com: Autism School Builds Texas’ Greenest K-12Special Education Leader Earns A+ for Going Green The environmentally cutting-edge, 100% green powered building is the first LEED® Gold certified and “Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR®” certified special needs school in the United States.
By: Momentum Bay Before Chrysalis’ opening less than a year ago, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized the green school with its rarely awarded “Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR” (DEES) certification - placing Monarch at the top of its class, among the nation’s 14 percent most energy-efficient private and public school buildings. Recently, The Monarch School’s Chrysalis achieved Gold certification under the US Green Building Council’s LEED for New Construction Rating System – making Monarch the highest rated LEED certified K-12 school in Texas. Head of School and Founder Dr. Marty Webb said, “We are delighted to have achieved such high scores from both green building programs, especially since we started pursuing DEES and LEED certifications late in our design process. We are already pursuing the ENERGY STAR label and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance certification.” Monarch’s Executive Board President David Matthiesen said, “We wanted to build green but we thought LEED and ENERGY STAR would cause exorbitant costs. Ultimately, we took a fact-based leap of faith, and learned firsthand that building green is economical, practical, meaningful and relevant to students, particularly ours with autism / Asperger’s, attention deficit and hyperactivity, and other neurological disorders.” Educational Video: http://www.howtogreenschools.com The school’s sustainability expert and advisor Mark Robinson, founder of Momentum Bay, a Houston-based green management consulting and marketing boutique (www.momentumbay.com) Ensuring a safe environment for students and reducing long-term operating costs through energy efficiency were central to Chrysalis’ green building strategies. Energy modeling and ENERGY STAR’s Target Finder tool confirmed both. Chrysalis is projected to prevent 33 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than a conventionally designed K-12 school, and use 33 percent less energy, saving more than $170,000 on utility bills over the next 25 years. These savings are worth more than a 13 percent discount on all design professionals’ Since 2007, Monarch also purchased 100% Green-e certified green electricity from GREEN POWER 4 TEXAS (www.greenpowerbroker.com) Shelly Pottorf, the project’s lead architect with Jackson & Ryan (www.jacksonryan.com) David Hill, project engineer at Mission Constructors (www.missionconstructors.com) The new special education facility is also serving Monarch as a teaching tool about sustainability and the environment. Green Building Services’ (www.greenbuildingservices.com) Science teacher Richard Klein added, “Monarch’s curriculum integrates sustainability and clean tech with science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) and other disciplines via several hands-on activities that teach leadership, entrepreneurship, neighborly respect and hospitality, as well as resource conservation for the great outdoors.” As it prepares to complete its green campus with two additional greener buildings, The Monarch School hopes that its underdog success story will inspire other schools. Monarch hopes that others will obtain their best possible grades for student performance by certifying independently building design, construction, operations and fiscal performance. One parent commented, “Students typically receive objective feedback – grades and recognition from their teachers - when they overachieve. So, why wouldn’t all of the United States’ 105,000+ public and private K-12 schools pursue the same, bringing home a ‘special’ education report card to parents every year?” To learn about Chrysalis’ green building strategies, visit http://www.howtogreenschools.com. Contact: Mark Robinson Strategy & Sustainability Consultant Momentum Bay Associates, LP (d.b.a., Sustainable Texas) mark@momentumbay.com 281-451-3841 or 877-ECO-TEXAS # # # Momentum Bay is a comprehensive “green” management consulting and marketing firm headquartered in Houston since 2002. That is, we catalyze green business, green building and/or green power from strategy to procurement to messaging. End
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