Paper Reduction in Our Schools and Offices

As the nation’s largest public school system, we’re conscious of the great amount of paper it takes to keep our 1,500 schools running. Lately, we’ve been making special efforts to reduce our paper usage in order to decrease our negative impact on the environment. Here are some of the ways that we’ve been working to go paperless:

• Changes to this year’s Learning Environment Survey saved six tons of paper compared to last year’s version. The survey is administered annually to get input from parents, teachers, and students on how well our schools engage students, ensure students’ safety, and communicate with community members; survey feedback is crucial in helping the DOE improve our schools. For the first time, about 500 schools participated in an online-only version of our survey in the 2008-09 school year, saving hundreds of thousands of sheets of paper. Participants at other schools who chose to take the paper version of the survey took a condensed version printed on fewer sheets. Overall, these steps helped us save over one million sheets of paper this year.
• This past school year, parents could apply online for their children’s school meals for the first time. This made it easier than ever for parents to ensure that their children enjoy nutritious meals in school while helping the environment. Also for the first time, parents could fill out one online form for all of their children’s meals rather than submitting a separate form for each student. As a reminder, all students qualify for free breakfast regardless of their parents’ income level, and many students qualify for free or reduced lunch. All parents should fill out the online forms because they help secure additional funding from the State for our schools. Fill out your online meal application today!
• Many of our schools have incorporated practical measures to help the environment into their curricula. At the Manhattan School for Children, second graders created an advertising campaign encouraging people to go paperless. The project included the creation of a television commercial in which students appear individually, telling the audience to “save the trees, save yourself” and “save trees, go paperless,” among other messages. Students have created an action plan for their school to use less paper.

In Our Schools: East Village Cafeteria Uses Sugar Cane Trays

Here’s a great In Our Schools feature about three East Village schools switching to sugar cane trays:When students from three East Village schools eat in the cafeteria these days, they know it’s good for their health and good for the environment.

East Village Community School, Children’s Workshop School, and P 94 all share a building on East 12th Street. Recently, the schools became some of the first school cafeterias in New York City to switch from Styrofoam to sugar cane pulp trays.

“Getting the Styrofoam out of our schools is a real contribution we can make toward a healthier world for our kids,” said Claudine Anrather, PTA co-president at Children’s Workshop School.

Parents began researching biodegradable and compostable trays after their children raised the issue during a school performance.

“Two years ago, our fifth graders put on a play about the Styrofoam trays schools throw out every day,” said PTA co-president Joyce George. “It was a wake up call.”

Sugar Cane Cafeteria Trays

Hi everyone – thanks for the feedback. I followed up on Jennifer’s question about recyclable cafeteria trays and here’s what I came up with:

We offer schools the option of using cafeteria trays made of sugar cane. These trays are fully biodegradable and break down within 45 days in a landfill. They’re good for the environment and reduce waste, so why don’t we use them all over?

Here’s the catch – the trays cost $.03 more per tray than the classic polystyrene tray. This doesn’t sound like much, but multiplied by the number of trays our schools use, this adds up very quickly.

So, like a lot of decisions, we leave this in the hands of principals; individual schools can choose to pay the additional cost to serve food on sugar cane trays.

John Shea Answers Some Initial Greening Questions

How does the DOE support sustainability and conservation?
Every year, many schools are awarded the Golden Apple presented by the Department of Sanitation to schools that have successful recycling, waste prevention, and neighborhood beautification programs.  Under the DOE light bulb recycling program, all heavy metals, associated with fluorescent, metal halide, mercury vapor, and low pressure sodium type bulbs are properly recycled out of our waste stream. In addition, the School Construction Authority released a NYC Green Schools Guide that calls for schools designed after January 2007 be built with green standards that will result in the new building’s gaining LEED Certification or the equivalent, and a minimum 20% reduction in energy cost. Just last month, it won a national award from the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council, an independent, nonprofit organization that supports buildings that are friendly to the environment.

Can you explain your recycling program?
The DOE has 1,223 schools that have designed recycling programs and appointed waste reduction coordinators, and the Division of School Facilities chairs a monthly Sustainability Committee which includes representatives from Sanitation, SCA, curriculum development, UFT, SchoolFood, Local 891 and the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability to review programs and look for ways we can engage students in recycling.

This month the Chancellor announced that the DOE is a member of the Green Schools Alliance. What is this organization?
The Green Schools Alliance is a nonprofit grassroots group that was started following the Mayor’s call to reduce energy consumption  by 30% by 2017.  The Department of Education is the first public school system in the nation to join the GSA, and will encourage its schools to participate in the GSA’s Green Cup Challenge, an annual national, student-driven event that supports school-based efforts to measure and reduce electricity use. The Department of Education will also form a partnership with GSA to arrange internships for high school students who want to build skills in sustainability and energy conservation.

What does it mean to be a member of the Green Schools Alliance?
For the first time, the DOE is measuring energy consumption at each of the 1,260 school buildings. Once they are measured,  the data is included in a computerized program  from the EPA called the Portfolio Manager which assigns an Energy Star rating from 1 to 100 to each buildings, 100 being the most efficient. Once the data is collected, then students and staff can get involved in their individual programs to reduce energy usage. It could be as simple as closing windows in rooms with air conditioning. What the students learn is conservation and energy efficiency.

Students Plant Trees in East Williamsburg

What a beautiful Arbor Day! The spring weather (70 and sunny!) makes it a great day to go out and plant a tree. Chancellor Klein, Glenn Close, Cornelia Guest, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, and other City luminaries joined 250 public school fifth graders to plant trees at Sternberg Park in East Williamsburg.

The event highlighted MillionTreesNYC, the City’s public-private partnership to plant one million new trees throughout the five boroughs by 2017. Chancellor Klein got the crowd of 250 kids pumped up and talked about the importance of partnerships between City agencies and community organizations. (He also told a great story about building a tree house with his daughter!)

If you’re looking for a way to take advantage of this weekend’s gorgeous weather, consider joining Hands on New York Day. They’re taking on the challenge of planting 20,000 new trees in the City’s parks… all in one day!

Benchmarking Efficiency in Our Schools

Earlier this month, Chancellor Klein and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, Rohit T. Aggarwala, announced a major step forward in increasing energy efficiency in our schools. Each school building was benchmarked to develop a detailed report of energy consumption. As those benchmarks are analyzed, we can develop system-wide strategies and offer school-level recommendations to principals about reducing energy consumption.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said Aggarwala. This is a great first step toward understanding how our school buildings use energy and how we can reduce our consumption throughout the City. One of the next steps is a partnership with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to install energy efficient lighting in 50 school buildings across the City. We think that leading by example is one of the best ways to educate students about environmental conservation.

Welcome!

Welcome, friends.

We’re happy to announce the launch of our first Department of Education blog – Going Green in New York City’s Public Schools. As the largest system of schools in the United States, we operate over 130 million square feet of space in 1,250+ buildings throughout the City. By taking steps to green our schools, we can have a big impact on the local, regional, and national environment.

Here on Going Green, we plan to feature stories and ideas from our schools, system-wide projects, our participation in citywide and national initiatives, and tips from leading environmental organizations. It’s our first foray into the blogosphere, so please leave your feedback in the comments so that we can continue to improve.