K-12 Education

Creating Greener Learning Spaces

At this year’s Illinois Healthy & High Performing Schools Symposium, representatives from across industries rallied around the concept of getting each child into a green facility in this generation. On April 8, MEEA joined sustainability professionals from across the State to address how we can continue greening our schools in order to create healthy and high performing environment for students. Held at Chicago Public School’s Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, the event was sponsored by the USGBC- Illinois Chapter and the Association of Learning Environments.

BOC Success Story: Duluth Public Schools

In April 2014, Dave Spooner, Supervisor of Maintenance & Construction at Duluth Public School District, enrolled six building operators in the Building Operator Certification (BOC) class in Cloquet, MN. As a supervisor, Dave was interested in the BOC program because it helps empower the employee and gets them thinking critically about energy use in buildings.

“The BOC program provided our employees some good knowledge and perspective on how they can utilize the new technology we have to provide a better service to our users and yet save energy,” Dave said.