Collaborative for High Performance Schools releases US-CHPS Criteria for all states and DC

by Brianna Crandall — November 26, 2014—The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) recently released US-CHPS, a version of the CHPS Criteria rating system that can be used in every state and the District of Columbia, supporting the desire of numerous districts across the country for new and renovated schools to be made healthy and sustainable for schoolchildren and staff alike.

The announcement, made from the Greenbuild Conference in New Orleans, is considered a significant milestone in the history of CHPS and an important driver in the expansion of healthy, high-performance schools across the United States. Until this release, only school districts in the thirteen states with a customized CHPS Criteria could participate in the program.

CHPS is a nonprofit organization founded in 1999 as a collaboration of California’s major utilities to address energy efficiency in schools. The program soon expanded to address all aspects of school design, construction and operation, with the following goals:

  • Protect student and staff health, and enhance the learning environments of school children everywhere
  • Conserve energy, water, and other natural resources
  • Reduce waste, pollution, and environmental degradation

The new US-CHPS Criteria is a companion to and based on the CHPS National Core Criteria (Core Criteria) that was developed over the last two years. US-CHPS is divided into seven categories: Integration (II), Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ), Energy (EE), Water (WE), Site (SS), Materials and Waste Management (MW), and Operations and Metrics (OM). Each category is comprised of prerequisites and credits totaling 250 points. Prerequisites are criteria that must be met by every project, depending on project type or scope. Credits are criteria that are optional choices that may be pursued by projects toward the total points needed for recognition.

The Collaborative for High Performance Schools believes kids learn better in schools with good lighting, clean air, and comfortable classrooms. The goal of CHPS is to fundamentally change the design, construction and operation of schools to protect student and staff health; conserve energy, water, and other natural resources; and reduce waste, pollution, and environmental degradation. To date, over two hundred CHPS Verified schools have been built nationwide.