News & Press

CHARTWELL SCHOOL RECEIVES $75,000 GRANT FROM THE KRESGE FOUNDATION

"A green or environmentally sustainable building," said Moses, "is a building that in its design, construction, and operation, makes a minimal draw on non-renewable resources and gives high priority to respecting the physical environment."  The Kresge Foundation in Troy, Michigan awarded $93.5 million to nonprofit organizations in challenge grants for capital projects that totaled $2.76 billion last year.  With the launch of its Green Building Initiative, the Kresge Foundation is encouraging nonprofit leaders to consider actively how these facilities use natural resources.  The maximum planning grant size is $100,000.

 "The future of building new schools is to build them as if it really mattered - because it does," said Douglas Atkins, Chartwell's Executive Director.    Since 1983, Chartwell School has educated children with dyslexia and related language learning disabilities, providing them with the learning skills and self-esteem necessary to return successfully to mainstream education.  At Chartwell's new campus, children will continue to enjoy the school's attention to their individual learning needs.  Teachers trained in diagnostic instruction will continue to help them overcome the discouragement of falling behind their peers.  What will improve?   Better acoustics, ventilation, and healthy building materials will create a calm atmosphere.  Day-lighting and radiant floor heating will increase comfort, especially when kids work on bigger projects on the floor.   And because students thrive on variety, they will enjoy an abundance of indoor-outdoor learning spaces.  

Esherick, Holmsey, Dodge, and Davis (EHDD) Architects of San Francisco have worked with Chartwell to create the design for its first permanent home.  The K-8 school, with four buildings totaling 36,000 sq. ft., will be located on 29 acres at the former Ft. Ord. Chartwell asked for a campus that would reflect it commitment to implementing and disseminating the latest, peer-reviewed scientific research on reading while educating each student as a unique and valuable individual.  The school will thus be a high performance learning environment that is energy and water efficient, comfortable, well lit, and healthy.  "What teacher or school board would knowingly pass up an opportunity to boost math or reading achievement by 20% if it could do so by investing 3% more when building its new schools?"  asked Atkins, quoting from the findings of a Herschong-Mahone Group daylighting study for the California Board for Energy Efficiency and Pacific Gas and Electric Company." [as cited in the Sacramento Bee, June 28, 1999 p A1]

Chartwell's board and staff also looked carefully at controlling future costs and respecting the Central Coast's need to conserve water.  The design will achieve net zero energy use through natural lighting, natural ventilation, an energy efficient envelope and grid connected photovoltaic cells.  The campus design allows for water conservation through native landscaping, the use of recycled water for irrigation, and a rainwater collection system to conserve one of Monterey County's most precious resources.  Chartwell's Kresge Foundation funding will support costs of energy analysis and modeling, material analysis, ecological site planning, and commissioning services to test and document green building systems.   

The School's goal is to be the first campus in the state built from the ground up to be certified at the United States Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold or possibly, the first campus in the nation certified at LEED Platinum  (highest standard).  The design, which also complies with the Collaborative for High Performance Schools rating system to improve the quality of education for California's children, affords long-term cost savings in energy, in addition to creating a better environment for students.  "This extraordinary school, a direct reflection of Chartwell's commitment to this philosophy of high performance green building practices, possesses immense potential, not only for profoundly impacting each individual fortunate enough to inhabit it, but also for serving as a seminal example to others with similar aspirations, " said John A. Boecker, Architect and member of the USGBC Board.

The total campus, including cost of land, site preparation, construction, utilities, furnishings, and the capital campaign will cost less than $16 million, a figure well below what single buildings have cost on other existing campuses.  Atkins noted that the California Sustainable Building Task Force has found that a certified green building costs about 3% more initially, but that over time, the extra cost yields a tenfold savings in lower energy and water bills, reduced waste disposal costs, and increased student learning and productivity.  "This also makes sense because buildings consume 40% of the world's energy, 25% of the world's annual wood harvest, and 16% of potable water.  We believe that in a very short time these advanced principles featured in the Chartwell School design will become the natural standard for almost all construction," commented Bruce Michels, Chartwell's Board President. 

Community support for the project has been impressive and includes a $4 million challenge grant from the Catherine L. and Robert O. McMahan Foundation.                 

            For more information about Chartwell School, please contact Douglas Atkins at 831-394-3468. Websites relevant to this story include www.chartwell.org, www.kresge.org, and www.ehdd.com. For more on green buildings, see www.usgbc.org and for Collaborative for High Performance Schools, see www.chps.net.

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