Sustainability in Our Schools

Defining Sustainability

The Corvallis School District defines sustainability as “meeting the educational, environmental, social, and economic needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainability has been part of the district vision for many years.  As early as 2009 sustainability showed up in board policy when our current mission statement, “Provide all students with a relevant and challenging education that prepares them for future success as engaged citizens and contributing members of our world community.”

Adopted in 2011, Board Policy EDDA states, “The district recognizes sustainability as a guiding principle and believes that our education system should lead the way in developing an ethic of sustainability in all of its practices.

Current Sustainability Activities

• In effect since the 2016-17 school year, each school has a School Sustainability Leader (SSL) to support student, staff and parent/guardian efforts to make the school’s operations and activities are more environmentally sustainable.
• A CSD Sustainability Task Force was convened in early 2017 to develop specific recommendations for sustainability action and measurable goals. The task force is comprised of staff and community members, some of whom were active with a CSD Sustainability Steering Committee that has not formally gathered since the spring of 2013. The task force has reviewed activities and accomplishments of the earlier sustainability efforts and conducted a strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats exercise to determine areas of focus for a plan of action. This work will continue into the 2017-18 school year.
• Information about current operational sustainability practices is available HERE.

Eco-Charrette Meeting planned for October 7

As part of the current long range facilities planning process, the Corvallis School District will host an Eco-Charrette designed to gather sustainability goals for the long-range facilities plan. The meeting is open to the public and will be held on October 7, from 9 am – 11:30 am in the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library meeting room. Sign up is requested to accommodate seating needs. Please sign up by sending an email to [email protected] or by calling 541-766-4856.

This meeting is an opportunity for community members to learn about the district’s draft facilities plan and current sustainability activities. Participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm sustainability ideas and goals for the draft plan and will prioritize those goals.

Although the specific design details will not be created until after a facilities bond is successfully approved, the Eco-Charrette will help the school district generate a framework for rethinking how we deal with water, windows (for daylighting and circulation), building envelope, and infrastructure modernization for thermal comfort.

The district has hired DLR Group to facilitate the facilities planning process and they will lead the Eco-Charrette. The goal of the Eco-Charrette is to capture an array of ideas that will increase the sustainability of district facilities, discover synergies between these ideas, and inform a sustainable development action plan.

To learn more about the commitment to sustainability of DLR Group, please see their 2017 Sustainability Report HERE.

For more information about the facilities planning process, please contact Kim Patten, Facilities and Transportation Director at [email protected] or by calling 541-757-5811.