The Collaborative for High Performance Schools: Building a New Generation of Sustainable Schools

Daryl Mills, California Energy Commission
Charles Eley, Eley Associates
Gregg Ander, Southern California Edison
Grant Duhon, Pacific Gas and Electric

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Abstract

California schools are facing multiple challenges: unprecedented student population growth, demands for improved student performance, consistently tight budgets, and thousands of school buildings in need of repair.

The school market is extraordinarily heterogeneous, with districts varying in size, organization, and goals. Each of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) stakeholders—a diverse group of utility, government, and non-profit agencies—has individual programs targeted for the schools in their jurisdiction. CHPS is a forum to coordinate and pool resources to create materials that all the stakeholders can use.

CHPS has created a suite of programs and tools to directly address school districts’ primary needs and to help districts and designers build the next generation of schools: facilities that improve student performance, protect student health, and lower operational costs.

The CHPS programs embrace the entire spectrum of sustainable design issues including energy, water, and material efficiency; good indoor air quality; daylighting; visual, thermal, and acoustic comfort; and reduced environmental impact. The largest program has been the development of the Best Practices Manual. The three-volume manual is the flagship reference for high performance school design in California, and includes targeted marketing, process, goal-setting, and detailed technical information. In addition to CHPS, the stakeholders have a variety of financial incentive programs, demonstration programs, valueadded services, and training programs that are collectively promoted by CHPS.

The programs of CHPS and its stakeholders are helping to meet the needs of districts and designers, and are successfully transforming the market for new school construction in California.