SECTION 5 - New Directions in School Facilities

COLLABORATIVE FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE SCHOOLS (CHPS)

California schools are facing multiple challenges with unprecedented student population growth, demands for improved student performance, constantly tight budgets and thousand of school buildings in need of repair. To meet these demands, districts will spend billions of dollars in the upcoming years to build or renovate hundreds of schools. How these schools are designed will affect the quality of the buildings, decades of operational expenses, and most importantly the health and productivity of generations of students and staff. High performance school buildings, those that incorporate the very best of today's design strategies and building technologies, can simultaneously provide better learning environments for our children, cost less to operate, and help protect the environment.

In 2005 under Executive Order S-20-04, the Schools Workgroup was created to address these issues and how high performance ideas and concepts could be reflected in California schools. The Schools Workgroup, comprised of members from all of the major state agencies involved in public school construction, concluded by recommending to the Division of the State Architect to select the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Best Practices Manual to assist school districts with the design and construction of high performance facilities. Currently there are fifteen California school districts committed to building and renovating CHPS high performance schools and there over 100 projects that have either completed construction or are in the process of being built.

Organized in 2000, CHPS is a non-profit organization that works to raise the standard for California school facilities. CHPS's goal is to improve the quality of education for California's children and facilitate the design of learning environments that are resource efficient, healthy, comfortable, well lit and contain the amenities needed for a quality education. CHPS membership and board is comprised of a broad range of representatives including major state agencies, public utilities, product manufacturers, school districts, design professionals and other non-profit organizations.

CHPS is a free information resource, providing services, tools, and incentive programs for designing and constructing high performance schools. CHPS also provides outreach to school districts and design professionals through training programs on various high performance topics such as maintenance and operations, commissioning and on its six-volume CHPS Best Practices Manual. 

First published in 2001, the CHPS Best Practices Manual for High Performance Schools set the standard for high performance school design in California. The goal of the CHPS Best Practices Manual is to create a new generation of high performance school facilities in California. The focus is on public schools and levels K-12, although many of the design principles apply to private schools and higher education facilities as well. High performance schools are healthy, comfortable, energy efficient, resource efficient, water efficient, safe, secure, adaptable, and easy to operate and maintain. They help school districts achieve higher student performance, retain quality teachers and staff, reduce operating cost, increase average daily attendance, and reduce liability, while at the same time being friendly to the environment.
 
The CHPS Best Practices Manual series includes:

• Volume I: A Planning Guide to help schools begin the high performance design process. This volume addresses the needs of school districts, including superintendents, parents, teachers, school board members, administrators, and those persons in the school district that are responsible for facilities. These may include the assistant superintendent for facilities (in large districts), buildings and grounds committees, energy managers, and new construction project managers. Volume I covers why high performance schools are important, what components are involved in their design, and how to navigate the design and construction process to ensure that they are built.
• Volume II: A Design Manual to help designers and project managers choose and implement high performance technologies and strategies in their designs. The design guidelines offered in this volume are tailored for California climates, are organized by design disciplines, and are meant to offer assistance in meeting the CHPS high performance Criteria in Volume III.
• Volume III: A set of Criteria that provide baseline requirements, a flexible yardstick, and a rating program that precisely define a high performance school. Criteria points can be obtained through a broad range of high-performance building design strategies including daylighting, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, acoustics, building commissioning, sustainable materials, waste reduction, preventative maintenance, site protection, and water conservation. The design team and school district choose a combination of points to create a high performance school. CHPS recognizes schools that meet its Criteria through the CHPS Recognition Program. The Criteria may be applied for modernization, new building, and new school projects. School districts can use the criteria to clearly communicate their design goals and verify the facility's final performance. Designers can use the criteria as a tracking tool for including high performance features under budget and timeline constraints.
• Volume IV: Maintenance and Operations, picks up where Volumes I–III leave off after the design is finished and the school is constructed, commissioned and operational. Without proper maintenance and operations techniques, the benefits of high performance design can be lost. Volume IV provides guidance for maintenance and operations staff, teachers, and administrators, giving strategies for avoiding improper use of building systems and poor maintenance practices that can greatly diminish the benefits of a high performance school. This volume provides information to ensure that the building operates as intended, providing optimal health, efficiency and sustainability.
• Volume V: The Commissioning volume provides important information on commissioning high performance schools. Commissioning is a critical step in ensuring that the technologies and high performance elements designed are actually built and tested to meet specifications. 
• Volume VI: The Relocatable Classroom volume packages all the high performance information in one place for school districts that are purchasing or leasing relocatable classrooms. The goal of this volume is to provide manufacturers, school districts and architects with the tools and concepts necessary to specify, build and acquire high performance relocatable classrooms. Related issues such as placement on the site, applicable codes and the procurement process are covered to ensure that all new relocatable classrooms are efficient and good learning environments.

The CHPS Best Practices Manual is supported by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools' Web site (www.chps.net), which contains research papers, support documents, databases, and other information that supports the manual.

CHPS hopes to impress on school districts, through its resources, training and tools, that building a high performance school is feasible and cost effective. It is just a matter of making it a priority in the planning process. A school district can build sustainable schools if they demand them, plan early, know what to ask for, and verify that the design firms hired have the required knowledge and skills to implement high performance features. CHPS has developed an implementation roadmap to assist schools implementing CHPS for the first time, which can be found in Volume I of the 2006 Edition CHPS Best Practices Manual in Appendix B. There are five key elements to creating a high performance school.

1. Set Goals:  Develop your high performance goals early. The benefits of high performance schools are achievable only when districts establish their goals from the beginning and fight for them over the course of the development process. CHPS recommends that school districts adopt a board resolution committing to high performance design and construction, and targeting priority areas such as acoustics and indoor air quality. A sample resolution can be found on the CHPS website (www.chps.net). Fifteen school districts in California have signed resolutions including Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Diego, San Marcos, Natomas, New Haven, San Rafael, Dry Creek Jt. Elementary, Ukiah, Burbank, Coast, San Francisco, Vacaville, Visalia, Palo Alto and Coast Community College. These districts have been able to reap the benefits of high performance schools on a district-wide level.
2. Communicate Goals to Designers: Include your high performance goals using the CHPS Criteria, in specifications and designer Request for Proposals, to communicate early your design intentions. Choose a design team with the skills necessary to make your goals a reality.
3. Pursue Integrated Design: Insist on the development of a CHPS integrated design team to take full benefit of design options that affect the entire building performance. Have your architect, engineers, project manager, and contractors meet on a regular basis and discuss how building features and construction procedures affect each other's work and the overall design goals.
4. Monitor Construction: Communicate goals to the contractors, and be wary of substitutions or design changes during construction that might occur without consulting the designer.
5. Verify Goals: Commission the building to prove that you are getting what you paid for, and that the building has been built as designed, and designed to your specifications.  

For more information about CHPS visit: www.chps.net or call 877-642-CHPS.

- Kristin Heinen