Schools are the hearts of neighborhoods and communities in Massachusetts. Mass Clean Energy Center’s Green School Works program supports K-12 public schools in making clean energy upgrades that can reduce pollution while improving the buildings students and staff rely on.
On a local level, investing in projects to electrify school buildings and make them more efficient can have lasting benefits that extend well beyond the classroom.
Supporting Schools as Community Hubs
School buildings often function as vital community assets. Outside of the school day, many schools across Massachusetts serve as community event spaces, polling places and civic meeting rooms, emergency shelters, and more. As the state’s school buildings age, clean energy upgrades can help ensure schools remain a resource beyond student learning by making these spaces more reliable, comfortable, and useful to the people they serve.
On-site renewable energy, like solar, can play a role in supporting that broader function. When paired with battery storage, solar can help keep critical systems running during power outages, allowing a school to continue operating when it may be needed most.
Truro Central School, a recipient of a Green School Works grant, is looking to do exactly that. The funding will support the Town of Truro in constructing a solar carport at the school, with additional plans to install battery storage down the line. These investments would support the town’s goal of developing the school as a hub where power can remain available during outages, not only for school operations, but also for residents who may rely on the building as an emergency shelter.
Another way clean energy upgrades can benefit the community is through HVAC electrification with modern heat pump systems. This brings efficient cooling to schools, many of which lack air conditioning and increasingly experience extreme heat. Adding cooling as part of an HVAC electrification project can help schools remain comfortable and accessible for students and community members, while also reducing greenhouse gas pollution. These upgrades can also allow schools to serve as cooling centers during periods of extreme heat.
Investing in Civic Pride
Investing in school facilities through clean energy upgrades can be a source of civic pride, showing students, staff, and the surrounding community that these spaces—and the people who use them—are worth investing in.
This year, with support from a Green School Works grant, Boston Public Schools completed an HVAC electrification project at Otis Elementary School in East Boston, bringing modern cooling, ventilation, and air filtration systems to the 121-year-old building.
Katherine Walsh, Director of Planning, Engineering, Sustainability, & Environment at Boston Public Schools, explained the message that projects like these send. “When a district, a city, a facilities staff makes a transformative, very visible investment in a building, it is sending a message to those students, those teachers, that community,” she said. “It sends the message that you matter; you are worthy; we need to invest in you. You deserve to come to a modernized, safe, healthy [school] building. Your education, your health, your safety matters.”
Walsh highlighted what this means for the Otis. “East Boston is an environmental justice community,” she said. “So, it’s even that much more important that we send that message, and walk the talk, so to speak.”
Kayla Brandt, Environment & Sustainability Project Manager at Boston Public Schools, noted that the Otis project is particularly special as a retrofit of an old building. “For historical buildings like the Otis, there’s a lot of community pride there already,” she said. “The fact that they now get to go to school in a building that’s served generations of East Boston children and have an upgraded experience without losing the culture and the character of the building, is its own experience on the side.”
Advancing Environmental Justice
Low-income communities and communities of color have historically borne a disproportionate share of environmental hazards and pollution, which can contribute to health issues across generations. Schools in these communities can also face challenges related to aging facilities and indoor environmental quality, adding to existing environmental disparities. Clean energy upgrades in schools can help address some of these inequities.
School clean energy projects can reduce a local source of pollution by decreasing the amount of fossil fuels burned on-site. HVAC projects that bring cooling and improved indoor air quality can be transformative for student comfort and health, especially in communities already exposed to higher levels of pollution. These benefits can extend beyond students to their families and the broader community. Targeting clean energy investments where they are needed most can help create healthier, more equitable school environments.
Otis Elementary School and its neighborhood experience heightened air pollution from Logan Airport and multiple nearby highways, making its HVAC retrofit—including advanced ventilation and air filtration—particularly meaningful from an environmental justice perspective. Oliver Sellers-Garcia, the Green New Deal Director and Commissioner of the Environment Department for the City of Boston, spoke to the project’s impact. “It’s creating a community asset; it is adding to hopefully the positive health feedback loop of everyone who works or studies in that building,” he said.
Putting Sustainability into Practice
Clean energy projects in schools demonstrate a commitment to sustainability that students, families, and the broader community can see firsthand. By making these investments where kids spend much of their day, schools can help the next generation understand and value clean energy solutions.
As high-profile civic spaces, schools can also build awareness of clean energy technologies within their communities. Parents, staff, and residents can experience benefits such as improved comfort, while seeing technologies like solar panels and heat pumps in action.
Scott Hemlin is the principal of Ralph C. Mahar Regional School in Orange, which received a Green School Works grant for air source heat pumps, ventilation system upgrades, and heat pump water heaters. “We live in a community that is very environmentally conscious,” he said. “We have our own programs here, clubs and so forth, that focus on the environment. I think [this project] is a continuation of [how] we want to walk the walk and talk the talk. We educate kids and talk about being environmentally conscious. When we put those things into practice, the community I think sees the value in that.”
School clean energy projects do more than improve buildings. They give students and communities a tangible example of sustainability in action while showing what clean energy technologies can make possible in the places people rely on every day.
To learn more about Green School Works grants, technical assistance, and awardees serving K-12 public schools, visit the Green School Works page.