Opinion: A Love Letter To School Buildings 

I spend my days working to support healthy schools and to counteract the dysfunction that results from America chronically underinvesting in its school buildings. In Amherst, as well as across the state, we have buildings that hinder rather than support learning. We have school buildings with antiquated HVAC equipment that could not provide adequate air circulation during the height of the COVID pandemic. We have school buildings that are utterly unprepared for the impacts of climate change, which march closer and with more intensity every school year. 

And we can’t forget that our current school buildings contribute to climate change by burning fossil fuels for heat – a perverse (dis)service to the young people inside. Buildings with poor insulation, poor ventilation, and lack of daylight undermine teaching and learning.

Educators themselves know what we mean when we talk about “the third teacher”. It’s the physical environment. And it matters deeply. There is an enormous body of research on the connections between school buildings and student learning. School buildings have demonstrated impacts on everything from reading scores and attention to attendance and teacher retention. 

When it comes to health, the evidence is striking. Young bodies are not just little adult bodies. They are more vulnerable to all manner of environmental hazards including toxins, particulate matter, and extreme heat. And the impacts can be lasting with 13.8 million school days missed nationwide due to asthma which may be triggered by poor indoor air quality at schools. 

With the Northeast as one of the fastest warming parts of the country, extreme heat will continue to undermine learning. As a community, we urgently need to enhance our climate resilience. A modern school building with a geothermal heating and cooling system is a critical start on that work. When a heat dome of the sort that killed over 800 people in the Northwest in 2021 descends on Amherst, our new school could serve as a cooling center for our elders, our unhoused residents, and other vulnerable populations. 

In addition to protecting our health, these capital investments will also protect our school’s operating budget. Buildings in poor condition are a drag on resources, sucking up more and more of budgets with costly repairs and operational inefficiencies. Relying on increasingly costly fossil fuels to heat two leaky school buildings is wasting money that could otherwise be devoted to the core mission. And when these heating systems fail, we’ll be faced with costly renovations in basically uninsulated buildings and potentially no state help to foot the bill. It’s a disastrous set of circumstances to even imagine.

The opportunity to multi-solve for healthier buildings, budgetary woes, and the climate emergency is right in front of us. Namely, the proposed new elementary school with its energy-efficient net-zero design. 

And in case anyone thought green was costing us more, by electing to install a geothermal heating and cooling system, we will earn millions in federal and utility incentives. These incentives are so rich that they have made the “green” choice also the most affordable choice. A conventional gas system would be more expensive to install. The investment in solar panels for renewable energy will make the school also less expensive to operate. With new incentives, net-zero schools don’t need to cost any more than conventional schools. And we gain with reduced emissions and healthier buildings for kids and teachers.

Last week, I was in Washington DC listening to Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the son of a school custodian, talk about why he has been a long-standing champion of school buildings. “We’re sending a very strong message to children when we don’t upgrade and modernize school buildings. That message is, it’s not important.” 

I’m voting “yes” on May 2 because healthy, climate-ready school buildings are essential to our young people and an absolute necessity for the ongoing vitality of our community. 

Sara Ross is a parent of students at the Amherst Regional Middle School and Amherst Regional High School, a graduate of both, and a co-founder of UndauntedK12, a national nonprofit striving to activate K-12 schools in the work to safeguard a habitable planet.