Trailblazers for Whole School Sustainability

Case Studies of Educators in Action

Jennifer Seydel, Cynthia L. Merse, Lisa A. W. Kensler, David Sobel, Jennifer Seydel, Cynthia L. Merse, Lisa A. W. Kensler, David Sobel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000522969
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What does it take to prepare students, teachers, and school staff to shape a just and sustainable future? In Trailblazers for Whole School Sustainability, you will meet educators and school leaders who are on the front lines of re-imagining school through the lens of sustainability.

This book features inspiring stories from around the country, from urban and rural schools and districts, that highlight best practices and lessons learned from teachers, administrators, and students as they transformed their school communities for a just and sustainable future. These stories are structured around a practical framework that demonstrates how this work allows schools and districts to work smarter, not harder, by integrating sustainability and systems thinking into leadership; curriculum and instruction; culture and climate; and facilities and operations.

While each school and district's story in this book is different, the passion that drives each one to embrace sustainability in everything they do, from operations to curriculum, remains the same. Trailblazers for Whole School Sustainability shows what is possible when educators resolve to blaze a trail to re-imagine K-12 education for a just and sustainable future.

SECTION 1 Leadership

DOI: 10.4324/9781003152811-1

Meaningful, lasting change does not happen overnight. It takes consistent, focused, and visionary leadership and sustained, collaborative effort. This is no different in the case of whole school transformation. Creating a healthy, equitable, and sustainable school is a multi-year endeavor that requires the guiding hand of one or more committed, forward-thinking leaders. Such leaders embrace a shared leadership model and routinely engage the school community in carrying out the school’s vision. They recognize all members of the school community as learners and leaders and empower them to play a role in the school’s sustainability practices. Such leaders create a culture of community and belonging. They prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion and make sure every individual who enters the school feels welcome, safe, respected, and valued. Such leaders foster strong school–family–community partnerships and actively seek out ways to engage families and community organizations in the school’s sustainability work. Reciprocally, they seek out ways to support families and community members in need.

This section features four case studies that illustrate how visionary leadership shapes whole school sustainability at the school and district levels.

“The Philadelphia Sustainability Story: Drivers for a Large Urban Public School District’s Sustainability Plan” describes how the School District of Philadelphia leveraged visionary leadership and community partners to create a districtwide sustainability plan, called GreenFutures. You will learn about some of the district’s early successes under GreenFutures and how partnerships with community organizations have contributed to the plan’s success.

“Leadership and Autonomy Drive a Sustainable Future at Encinitas Union School District” describes how Encinitas Union School District adopted a shared vision for sustainability across nine schools, each of which adheres to a different instructional model. You will learn how the district created systemic change across its operations, culture, and curriculum by engaging the entire school community – school leaders, teachers, staff, and students – and focusing on three Gs: green teams, garbage, and gardens.

“Teaching Our Cities: Place-Based Education in an Urban Environment” describes how Common Ground High School is creating a model for urban place-based education that is culturally relevant and student-centered. You will learn how school leaders engaged the school community in developing a four-year progression of authentic learning experiences that, while rooted in core academics, allow students to follow their passions and interests and be introduced to some of the experiences and programs that students engage in over the course of their time at Common Ground.

“Food Waste Inspires a Shift to Whole School Sustainability at the School of Environmental Studies” describes how the School of Environmental Studies used the issue of food waste to kick start its shift to whole school sustainability. You will learn how the school’s principal overcame a series of barriers to implement a schoolwide, student-led food waste reduction project, and how this project provided the momentum to develop a sustainability strategic plan that further embeds whole school sustainability into the school’s operations, culture, and curriculum.

1The Philadelphia Sustainability StoryDrivers for a Large Urban Public School District’s Sustainability Plan

Francine Locke

DOI: 10.4324/9781003152811-2

School District of Philadelphia

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Eighth largest public school district in the nation

Number of schools: 340 schools

Number of students: 200,293

Student demographics: 52% Black/African American; 21% Hispanic/Latino; 14% White; 7% Asian; 6% Multiracial/Other

2017 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon District Sustainability Awardee

A buzz of excitement perfumes the air outside of Philadelphia’s City Hall. A crowd gathers and a hushed chatter rises and falls. It is May 16, 2016 and the occasion is a press conference to kick off a new chapter at the School District of Philadelphia. The district is announcing its commitment to implement an ambitious sustainability plan, called GreenFutures. The plan, three years in the making, would ultimately lead the district to be recognized as a 2017 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon District Sustainability Awardee for its efforts in working toward the three pillars of sustainability: reducing environmental impacts and costs; improving occupants’ health and performance; and increasing sustainability literacy. In the years since that recognition, the School District of Philadelphia has received additional accolades for GreenFutures and its sustainability work, including the 2018 Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence and the 2019 Project Green Schools Green Difference Award. The district also established an Office of Sustainability in 2019 following the hiring of a Director of Sustainability and Green Schools.

How did the district get here? It took a superintendent with vision and individuals in key roles who were open to new ideas, collaboration within and outside the district, opportunistic timing, and perseverance.

Challenges or Opportunities

Like any school district found throughout the country, Philadelphia’s schools face a number of challenges. Many of these challenges can be summed up by three overarching themes: health, infrastructure, and operations.

Health

Nationally, asthma is the leading cause of student absenteeism due to chronic illness and evidence shows that asthma affects academic performance (American Lung Association, 2009). Nearly 30% or more of students in Philadelphia are diagnosed with asthma (Pennsylvania Department of Health, 2015).

Infrastructure

According to an independent facility condition assessment of Philadelphia public schools (Parsons Environment and Infrastructure Group, Inc., 2017), there is a $4.5 billion need to bring all building systems into a state of good repair. The district’s building stock is deteriorating, with an average building age of over 70 years, and there is inadequate funding to renovate building systems at a pace needed to ensure high-quality facilities.

Operations

An enormous public school operation and building portfolio carries a weighty footprint, with over 23 million square feet of building space, 1,300 acres of land, and over 150,000 free meals served daily at district schools. Energy consumption was benchmarked at 1,809,266,665 kilowatt British Thermal units (kBTUs) in 2016, and district- and contractor-owned buses consume fuel and emit pollutants daily while transporting thousands of students to and from public, private, parochial, and charter schools.

Taken together, these challenges presented an opportunity for the district to instill a culture of sustainability in its operations and to measurably impact environmental, fiscal, and social change.

The Path to GreenFutures – Visionary Leadership and Partnerships Drive Creation of Sustainability Plan

Dr. William Hite joined the School District of Philadelphia as its new superintendent in June 2012. Dr. Hite’s leadership team was innovative, data-driven, and open to new evidence-based approaches to improve student academic performance. His team of curriculum writers, strategic planners, and educators designed a framework for student success that would ultimately catapult a variety of other successful initiatives, including a fiscal stability plan that resulted in a balanced budget and improved credit rating and a Read by 4th student literacy campaign.

A key driver for the district’s sustainability success was a laser-focused Superintendent’s Action Plan, which created a stable, results-oriented culture with a focused, shared vision: “Every child can learn, and every school can be great.” The district’s Office of Environmental Management & Services interpreted “great” as “green.” The plan was not formally approved by the School Reform Commission (now Board of Education) but was Dr. Hite’s pronouncement of how to move the district forward. The action plan consisted of three consecutive versions: the first (2012) focused on stabilizing the district; the second (2013) started to look forward; and the third (2015) focused on repairing, building, and improving the district.

Although student literacy was the primary desired outcome of the action plan, the district leadership team recognized that various interventions were needed to accomplish this outcome, in addition to excellent instructional and curriculum interventions. For the district, this was the perfect time to introduce a framework for green, healthy, and sustainable schools, given that peer-reviewed research and data indicated that these environments were where children learn best (Okcu, Ryherd, and Bayer, 2011). Dr. Hite and his team welcomed the guidance because there was a clear connection between green, healthy, and sustainable schools and student academic achievement.

Photo 1.1 Children at the William Cramp School’s green schoolyard ribbon- cutting ceremony. Credit: The Trust for Public Land, Jenna Stamm.

In May 2013, a new Chief Operating Officer, Fran Burns, joined the district leadership team. Ms. Burns was open to new ideas, and some of those ideas included addressing indoor air quality; creating healthy, clean, and welcoming school environments; creating more green spaces at district schools; offering nutritious and appealing food; and engaging in energy conservation initiatives. While attending a professional development course at Harvard University’s School of Public Health in March 2014, the district’s Environmental Director learned how an organization’s environmental department staff was uniquely qualified and positioned to lead sustainability performance improvement. A subsequent meeting with Ms. Burns green lighted the development of a districtwide sustainability plan.

The School District of Philadelphia was not a stranger to sustainability before adopting GreenFutures. A variety of green initiatives were underway as the sustainability plan took shape. All were incorporated into the plan to support its focus areas. Some of these initiatives included:

• Innovative energy procurement, energy benchmarking, utility bill auditing, and demand response programs that saved millions of dollars (Lee, 2012).
• Pilot recycling programs at 87 schools (by 2020, recycling had been implemented at all 220 schools).
• Construction of green stormwater infrastructure and outdoor learning spaces.
• The purchase of a fleet of environmentally friendly buses.
• Harvest of the month and farm-to-table programs.
• A district wellness policy.
• An indoor environmental quality program with an emphasis on asthma trigger prevention based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools program.
• The construction of eight LEED-certified school buildings, including the first LEED Platinum public high school in the nation and a LEED-certified Existing Building.

In spring 2014, the district’s Operations team held internal meetings to discuss how all departments were connected through sustainability. A “silo busting” exercise was conducted where Transportation, Food Services, Capital, Facilities, and Procurement leads shared ideas about how each department contributed to the district’s overall environmental and fiscal footprint and how each department impacted the others. One example was breakfast in the classroom. When breakfast in the classroom was initiated by Food Services as a districtwide program, a huge increase in trash required Facilities to provide more cleaning services to respond to spills. Although Food Services was given federal funding for the breakfast program, an increase in funding for Facilities response services was not included. Further, milk and juice cartons were measured at 20% of the district’s waste stream but were not accepted by its waste hauler as recyclable (This changed with the selection of a new vendor later). Another example was the purchase of bulk inventories of cleaning, maintenance, and science chemicals. Although the unit cost was usually significantly less when purchased in bulk, oftentimes, these chemicals remained on shelves for years only to be disposed of as hazardous waste through the Environmental Department at a cost that exceeded the purchase value. Clearly, it was time to connect the dots.

The next step was hiring a dedicated district sustainability staff member who could focus their time on developing relationships with partners who could mentor the Environmental Department’s staff about sustainability. Megan Garner was hired as a consultant in spring 2014 to assist with this effort and was formally hired as the district’s Sustainability Project Manager in 2017. Garner connected the district with local sustainability- minded partners who were immersed in initiatives that aligned with the ideas and plans the district was beginning to envision. The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability, whose sustainability plan, Greenworks, has made significant measurable improvements in greening Philadelphia through infrastructure and social and cultural mindset changes, jumped at the opportunity to mentor the district’s Environmental Department staff. The office also connected the district with dozens of partners who contributed their time, expertise, in-kind donations, and resources toward developing the sustainability plan and implementing its actions.

Photo 1.2 Children at the William Dick School examine native plants in their outdoor classroom. Credit: The Trust for Public Land, Jenna Stamm.

With its partners, the district formed five subcommittees, each dedicated to developing a mission, goal, actions, targets, and metrics for each of the plan’s five focus areas: Education for Sustainability; W...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Editors
• Section 1: Leadership
• Section 2: Curriculum and Instruction
• Section 3: Culture and Climate
• Section 4: Facilities and Operations
• Notes on Contributors