As LAUSD tightens belt, ‘green’ resolution helps trim water, energy costs

While the Los Angeles Unified School District grapples with budget slashing, teacher layoffs, program cuts and increasing class sizes, a 3-year-old program has been steadily carving away at future water and electricity costs for the 14,000 buildings in the sprawling system.

Since passage in 2007 of the Green LAUSD resolution, the district has been working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and its energy and water use by 10% from 2007 levels by 2013. It also will install 50 megawatts of solar photovoltaic arrays, a move that could save the district more than $20 million annually on an electricity bill that normally costs $85 million.

In March, hundreds of decades-old buses will be upgraded to less-polluting, more energy-efficient propane models. Eight of a planned 250 schools will have solar power installations. Still others will be outfitted with “smart” irrigation systems to reduce the millions of gallons of imported water the district guzzles each day, more than half of which is used for outdoor watering.

“Our mission is to be the greenest school district in the country,” said L.A. Board of Education President Monica Garcia, one of three board members who presented the Green LAUSD resolution in late 2007 to outline specific goals for water and energy conservation. “It’s good for the students, good for the planet, good for the neighborhoods.”

Most of the changes have been funded with voter-approved state bond measures, utility incentives and grants from agencies including the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Southern California Edison and the L.A. Department of Water and Power. An additional $120 million in federal Clean Renewable Energy Bonds may also be available to LAUSD to help it go solar.

“If we can demonstrate that it’s possible to be green in a cost-effective manner in a school district as large as L.A., it can be done almost anywhere,” said Randy Britt, director of sustainability initiatives for LAUSD. “All this is part of an investment plan that will help build assets that will then be able to generate savings in the general fund.”

Under a program unveiled for this school year, a portion of water and energy savings are being returned to schools that institute conservation measures, such as fixing leaky faucets or turning off lights in empty rooms.

The 44 campuses the district plans to build by 2013 will be designed in compliance with the standards of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which sets water- and energy-efficiency standards and encourages better classroom acoustics and air quality, mold prevention and natural lighting.

“People think of the whole green issue as focusing on energy, but it’s actually only one-fifth energy. It’s also focused on air quality, land use and human comfort,” said Vivian Loftness, professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and co-chair of a 2008 National Research Council report on green schools. “There’s a much broader set of issues.”

The report found that many green building practices also aided learning.

For instance, insulated walls and double-pane windows also reduce noise pollution that affects students. Increasing the amount of natural light in classrooms also triggers melatonin production that leads to healthy sleep cycles and makes textbooks and other materials more colorful and compelling to students, Loftness said. Using paints without volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, reduces respiratory problems such as asthma, the No. 1 cause of absenteeism in schools.

The combination of green architectural practices and improved learning and teaching opportunities led to Project Frog, a San Francisco firm that designs and manufactures zero-energy classrooms and portable trailers, such as the one at an LAUSD charter school opening this fall.

In addition to featuring recycled denim insulation, low- and no-VOC interiors and a tall, pitched roof allowing so much natural light that overhead lighting may not be necessary, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in San Fernando will be used as a training center to prepare high school students for careers in California’s budding green economy.

Jay Gonzales, an advisor in LAUSD’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction, is working to infuse core math, science, language arts and social studies curricula with hands-on learning opportunities resulting from the district’s sustainability initiatives. “My mantra is, ‘Use what you have in the house,’ ” Gonzales said.

This spring, Gonzales is piloting a project that will get students involved in mapping out more water-efficient irrigation systems at their schools.

“LAUSD’s mandate is to educate, so everything we do should somehow be connected,” said Gonzales.

“Kids like to do things,” Gonzales added. “If we give them all this knowledge and we don’t give them an opportunity to use the knowledge to see how it works in practice, we’re short-circuiting something that’s naturally going for us with children, and that is their innate curiosity.”

susan.carpenter @latimes.com