Texas School for the Deaf Wins Grand Prize in Competition for Green School Makeover

Photo courtesy of DTK Austin.

The Texas School for the Deaf is the grand prize winner in the Global Green USA Green School Makeover Competition.

As part of the grand prize, the school will receive a ‘green makeover’ worth $130,000, according to the non-profit Global Green, which educates and raises funds for environmental initiatives.

The grand prize winner and four runners-up were selected by a panel of judges out of a pool of more than 200 public, private, and charter K-12 schools that submitted proposals for green renovations.

In announcing the results of the competition, Matt Petersen, president and CEO of Global Green, said, “Green schools improve student performance, increase average daily attendance, and reduce operating costs, energy, and water consumption.

“We are deeply excited to be able to bring those benefits to the students and teachers at the extraordinary Texas School for the Deaf.”

The school is the oldest continually operating, publicly funded school in Texas. Since 1857, over 10,000 students from grades K-12 have walked its halls.

Claire Bugen, the school’s superintendent said, “Unlike other public schools, we live on this campus 24 hours a day and we generate a lot of waste. This prize will help use take our fledgling recycling efforts to the next level and install some important tools – like automatic faucets – to help us become more sustainable.”

Actually, the school will do a lot more than just revamp its recycling and faucets. The school plans to make energy efficiency upgrades, implement large-scale water conservation initiatives, reduce paper waste, and provide education for the school community on recycling.

As part of its energy upgrades, the school plans to retrofit light fixtures to allow for energy efficient bulbs, as well as to install motion-activated lights to conserve energy.

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