The Greening of a Kentucky School District
By Ursula Thomas Miller
The Kenton County School District stands out as a leader in building innovative, energy efficient schools, and KCSD will hit another eco-friendly milestone when Turkey Foot Middle School opens in Edgewood this month. The district has saved more than $1 million in energy costs since beginning its aggressive eco-agenda with J.A. Caywood Elementary in Crestview Hills in 2005. “One of the reasons we got into building green is that it raises test scores by creating a better learning environment,” says Chris Baker, the district’s energy systems coordinator.
Turkey Foot has been engineered to reduce energy consumption even more than Caywood and Twenhofel Middle School in Independence, the district’s other green schools. At 133,000 square feet, Turkey Foot is twice the size of the building it replaced, yet it’s expected to use a third of the energy. Solar power will further reduce the school’s reliance on grid-supplied power and may eventually enable Turkey Foot to produce excess electricity that it could sell back to Duke Energy.
In addition to all that, the $23 million building will boast the first green roof on a Kentucky school. The green roof at Turkey Foot covers a relatively small 1,000-square-foot portion of the total roof—about the size of an average classroom. Students will grow cooking herbs in their rooftop garden to spice up school lunches. “The students got to pick which plants went on the roof and will help with the maintenance,” says Baker.
The district’s march toward energy independence doesn’t end at Turkey Foot. “Our next project is to take what we’ve learned with new construction and apply it to renovation at Scott High School in Taylor Mill,” Baker says. “Scott is our largest energy consumer in the district. We’re going to take it from the least efficient to the most efficient school.”
Originally published in the August 2010 issue.