If you haven’t read it already, the Washington Times has an editorial on green schools and the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act (H.R. 3021) written by William Spears, CEO of Energy Education Inc. According to the piece, the proposed legislation would help fund greener and more energy-efficient public school building projects in the wake of rising energy prices that have unceremoniously pinched the pocketbooks of educational institutions across the country. It’s already passed the House but hasn’t gone through the Senate yet, and Spears basically writes that schools can’t afford to wait for the government to act before they go green. He recommends organizing students and staff in your school and finding ways to conserve energy by changing your everyday usage and behavior.

Spears notes that the main source of the delay in the legislation is partisan politics - Democrats think the government needs to spend money now in order to effect change while Republicans are reluctant to loosen the purse strings for a speculative program that may take awhile to have any real effect on costs and overall sustainability in schools. Of course, time is money, and you’ll certainly spend a lot of it in trying to mobilize your entire student body and faculty toward their eco-friendly objective. Those who truly feel committed to going green in-house can even hire Spears’ Energy Education Inc. for some professional advice on energy conservation, although you may wish you’d just spent some of that money to get your school building LEED-certified in the first place.

In all seriousness though, I agree with what Spears has to say about saving energy and going green on your own without waiting for the cavalry to arrive. We’ve offered our own tips on going green for the new school year, as well as links where you can educate yourself for free. In the end, the amount of money you save and how green you can really go depends on you and how committed you are to effecting change in your school. So get on the web or read some literature and see what you can do today to provide a healthier, eco-friendlier future for your students. Whether you eventually hire the experts or formulate a plan on your own, it never hurts to learn as much as you can before you take the next step.

(Photo via Free Photos Bank)