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30 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / SEPTEMBER 2017
ELEMENTS Healthy Schools
L eadership in Energy and Environmental
Design has become a household name in
real estate, design and building circles. An-
other “best practices” program for school design,
which is less widely used but gaining traction in
the industry, is Collaborative for High Performance
Schools (CHPS).
CHPS is a national movement to improve student
performance and the entire educational experience
by building the best possible schools. The goal of
CHPS is to “fundamentally change the design,
construction and operation of schools to: pro-
tect student and staff health, and enhance the
learning environments of school children ev-
erywhere; conserve energy, water, and other nat-
ural resources and reduce waste, pollution, and
environmental degradation.”
We have been working with CHPS for seven
years and truly see the value in an alternative rat-
ing system that helps school districts and the proj-
ect teams design, construct and operate high perfor-
mance schools.
For the current versions of LEED (v4) and CHPS
(2014) and applicable to the construction of new
school buildings, there are several certification thresh-
old levels available:
CHPS & LEED –What’s the Difference?
LEED most heavily prioritizes credits in the Energy
category, whereas CHPS weights Indoor Environmen-
tal Quality Credits most heavily. LEED has a category for
Regional Priority credits allowing the rating system to
address geographically specific environmental priorities.
The Location and Transportation related credits (2 each)
for CHPS are contained within the Sites credit catego-
ry, whereas LEED v4 breaks Location and Transportation
into its own credit category with 8 credits. CHPS has an
Operations andMetrics category, where LEED breaks out
Operations and Maintenance into a separate certifica-
tion altogether.
LEED v4 assigns the highest value to credits that re-
duce contribution of carbon emissions, whereas CHPS
assigns the highest value to credits that enhance student
health and well-being. Both rating systems are instru-
mental in ensuring that our designs are focused on en-
vironmental as well as student health.
CHPS in Colorado
Colorado became the first state in the nation to adopt
the US-CHPS criteria for healthy, high-performance
schools, through an update to the Colorado High Perfor-
mance Certification Program (HPCP).
CHPS Verified denotes a level of CHPS certification
that combines a rigorous standard for
the design and construction of healthy,
green school buildings with a com-
plete third-party review. Achieving
CHPS Verified Leader status demon-
strates that a school has met one of
the most stringent standards for green
school design.
Our firm designed the nation’s first
CHPS Verified Leader certified school,
Alta Vista Charter School (AVCS) in La-
mar, which was completed in 2011.
We reduced energy consumption at
AVCS by 50 percent with significant
savings to this school, as compared to
anaverage school. Ahigh-performance
envelope coupledwith a geo-exchange
ground source loop heating and cool-
ing systemhelped achieve this savings.
In addition, to lower operational costs
the school has utilized exception-
al daylighting strategies, which not
only allows for lights to be turned off
during the day and significant energy
savings, but also helps create a healthy
learning environment fostering in-
creased student productivity andhigh-
er test scores. Rapidly renewable and
recycled content materials were used
throughout the building and during
construction, and over 70 percent of
the construction waste was recycled or
reused within the community. Unique
to CHPS, the team also employed the
Adele Willson
K-12 Studio
Principal,
Hord Co-
plan Macht
Ara Massey
Sustainabil-
ity Director,
Hord Co-
plan Macht
36%
45%
55%
73%
guidlines followed, self-certification
guidlines followed, third party verification
36%