Schools Honored with Green Awards

Wakefield, MA – In May 2012, Beverly High School and the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School were honored at the State House with Outstanding Green School Awards. These were two of five schools in the Commonwealth honored by the Green Schools Organization for transforming their learning environments. The Green School organization commended both of these schools with their “green” initiatives.
This is the fourth year that the Green Schools organization has recognized outstanding schools and environmental leadership in schools and communities. Awards were given to schools, leaders, projects, environmental education and efforts to improve waste management. Robin Organ, Executive Director and Founder of Green Schools, highlighted each school’s sustainable “green” design elements.
Originally built in 1965 Beverly High School was the picture of classic Californian style academic campus. Sprawling over five acres, the two-story school building had three academic wings, a field house and auditorium jutting off like spokes from a central corridor. At the time of its construction there was little consideration as to its energy efficiency, utilization of physical space or of percentage of impervious surface. As the years passed, the school started to decay, the roof was deteriorating and the school was no longer a building of which the community could be proud nor could it deliver top quality education to its students.
Under the threat of losing accreditation due solely to the deteriorating school building, Mayor William Scanlon took the necessary steps to transform the Beverly High School campus. He formed a “Green Team,” comprised of Al Calcagno, project manager, Heery International, Ricardo Anderson, assistant project manager, CTA/Konover Construction, Arnel Catalan, associate principal, MVG Architects, and Paul Banks, principal, B2Q Associates, to ensure that the new Beverly High School would reflect today’s principles of energy efficiency, sustainability, and smart growth.
The School underwent a significant transformation. Construction included a new four-story academic addition of approximately 160,000sf and renovations to the main core facilities including the field house, cafeteria, auditorium and music spaces. Breaking ground in January 2009, Beverly High School was completed on-time, under-budget, and targeted 41 points under the Collaborative for High Performance School Verification Program.
Beverly High School is now a high performance school.
Abraham Lincoln Elementary School was completed in 2010. The City of New Bedford worked with Daedalus Projects Inc., MVG Architects and its consultant team to design and develop a new facility that would provide the community with a 21st Century learning environment. The new 93,833sf elementary school serves 600 students from kindergarten to fifth grade. The building features an auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, library/media center, classroom spaces, and a recreation area including a synthetic turf field and resilient track. The new facility contains high efficiency systems and meets or exceeds all MA CHPS requirements.
The Abraham Lincoln School has been designated a “Model School” by the Commonwealth of MSBA’s Model School Program. This program was established to allow communities to re-use the design of a successful, recently constructed elementary, middle and high school. Model Schools contain optimal classroom space and are chosen by the MSBA for their efficiency, ease of maintenance, ability to accommodate lower or higher enrollments and the incorporation of sustainable “green” design elements. Districts in the state can now use the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School as a model for their new elementary school, modifying space and floor plans to suit the goals and needs of their community. When communities use a model school they can reduce both projects costs and completion time.