It was air conditioning and cigarettes that brought green schools to Ohio. Before the air conditioning and the cigarettes, in 1995, schools in the Buckeye State were like schools everywhere else in America: heated by inefficient, leaky systems that left some classrooms drafty in the winter and others boiling hot; poorly lit, with stale air that led to asthma flare-ups and afternoon headaches; and totally unequipped to harness the sun, wind, and rainwater that could help reduce utility bills and minimize the environmental impact of the buildings.
Then, in 1997, the state embarked on an ambitious school building program. For the first time, these new schools were required to include air conditioning, and a number of districts struggled with the higher utility costs. Franklin Brown, a since-retired planning director at the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, began searching for design standards that would help mitigate these costs, and discovered that building to LEED specifications could help schools save an average of $100,000 a year in operating and maintenance expenses.
Brown began pushing hard for a statewide LEED requirement for new schools, to the point that his then boss called him a “zealot.” A vegetarian of 40 years who is on his fourth Toyota Prius, Brown admits that he’s “kind of a tree hugger,” and he says it would have been worth getting fired to advocate for green building standards.
“LEED was the best deal that the schools could get,” Brown says.
In 2007, the commission passed a resolution requiring all new schools to be built to LEED Silver standards or higher. At the same time, the state decided to dedicate more than $4 billion in tobacco settlement funds to school construction, leading to an unprecedented school building boom. The fact that the new schools (funded by the tobacco settlement) came on line under the new LEED regulations (inspired by high air conditioning bills) helped Ohio race to the head of the pack, and earlier this year it became the first state to hit 200 LEED-certified schools.
The tobacco settlement funds ran out in 2011, and so school construction has slowed somewhat, but the state is still going strong, adding green schools in 10 to 20 districts per year (down from 30 to 35 at the peak of the boom). At last count, Ohio had 228 LEED-certified schools—3 Platinum, 81 Gold, 139 Silver, and 5 Certified—more than another 125 LEED-registered projects. Instead of hissing radiators and humming fluorescent lights, many Ohio schools today are outfitted with solar panels, wind turbines, and geothermal heating and cooling systems; with vegetable gardens and rain gardens; with low-offgassing paints, coatings, and furnishings; and with LED lights and large windows that let in the sun.
Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC, says that Ohio can serve as a model for other states, not only because of its track record, but also because many people might consider it one of the “least likely” states to become a hotbed for a sustainable building.
“We’re hoping that Ohio’s story is something we can show other states that are struggling, and say, ’You can turn this ship around,’” Gutter says. “When we presented green schools in early days, people said, ’Green is a luxury that we can’t afford.’ They said, ’It works in California or Portland, Oregon, but not in my state.’ Ohio has debunked that.”