Los Angeles Unified School District

Architect's drawing of the new Cahuenga Elementary School

The Los Angeles Unified School District is starting off its green building program with two showcase schools. Construction is slated to begin this fall on Cahuenga Elementary School, on the border of Koreatown and Hollywood, designed by Fields Devereaux Architects and partly funded by Southern California Gas Company. The three-story building is projected to save $60,000 a year in operating costs compared to an average school.

Both Cahuenga and the Southeast Learning Center in Maywood, south of Los Angeles, are scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2005, and will make such extensive use of natural sunlight to illuminate classrooms, green materials and energy-saving designs that they would probably earn a Gold rating under the LEED standard for sustainable buildings. The school district, however, is using the Coalition for High Performance Schools (CHPS) rating system, derived from the LEED standard but designed specifically for schools. Cahuenga School scores 48 out of 81 possible CHPS points, a high score.

Architect's drawing of the new Southeast Learning Center

In February of 2002, LAUSD became the first school district in the country to mandate that all new construction will have to meet CHPS certification standards. Since the district is in the middle of its largest building program ever, approximately $2.8 billion dollars worth, that’s a big deal.

"It's going to mean a lot, and it already has meant a lot," said John Zinner, sustainability consultant for the school district. "LAUSD is quite serious and committed, and is the first district to do this."

The CHPS certification mandate was made in time to be applied to all of the second phase of this massive construction program, about 40 schools with 32,000 new classroom seats in the next few years. Two more phases of construction will begin after that.