Carson City School District improving space, energy efficiency for new school year

A number of projects are on the agenda this year for the Carson City School District, not the least of which is a district-wide refit with energy-efficient improvements designed to give substantial annual savings back to the community over the next two decades, CCSD Operations Director Mark Korinek said.

Invoking a partnership with a national energy savings firm, CCSD is taking energy efficiency to the next level with projects ranging from new light bulbs to plumbing enhancements.

"We've always liked to be energy efficient," Korinek said. "We are the most energy-efficient school district in the state."

The Nevada Department of Education's most recent yearly financial report of school districts statewide found CCSD to have the lowest energy expenditures of any other public school district in the state, CCSD Public Information Officer Dan Davis said.

"We currently measure energy usage by energy usage index (EUI)," Korinek said. "We're at 46, which is the lowest in the state right now. We're hoping to get that into the thirties, which is almost unheard of."

To get there, CCSD has partnered with national energy consulting firm McKinstry in a two-year energy performance contract guaranteed to show annual savings of district energy usage by about $350,000 over the next 18 years, Davis said.

CCSD hired the Seattle, WA-based company in May 2016 to perform a districtwide audit of all school facilities to look for energy-saving measures. This audit, paid for by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Energy (GOE) Performance Contract Audit Assistance Program, identified potential
improvements that would save the district in utility and operational costs, Davis said.

"Energy and utility costs generally account for 20 to 40 percent of a school’s maintenance and operations budget, and can be much higher if equipment is beyond its useful life," he said. "With these improvements, classrooms will heat and cool more evenly, ventilation will be improved in certain areas, the light quality will be improved, [and] equipment will function with fewer repairs."

Among the targeted improvements are seemingly simple yet painstaking ones, like replacing existing light bulbs with LED technology.

Korinek said his department is currently tasked with changing nearly every bulb in the district to energy-efficient LED lighting, part of a $6 million undertaking financed through McKinstry.

"The energy side is over $2 million of LED light retrofit at every school in the district," he said. "The LED light bulb alone is guaranteed to last 10 years."

According to McKinstry, the district's LED upgrade is expected to save 1.4 million kilowatt hours after about 26,000 new bulbs are installed.

Not to mention LED output provides better lighting overall. That, in and of itself, is a benefit to classrooms and the students in them, Korinek said.

"Better lighting helps improve learning," he said. "A clean, healthy educational environment has always been our thrust."

The $6.4 million performance contract with McKinstry, financed over the next 18 years through annual savings realized from the upgrades, also includes water conservation measures meant to reduce waste and usage, Korinek said.

"There are some special things that can be done with urinals, toilets, and sinks where the water is aerated and flush patterns are tuned to save water," he said, reducing water output of plumbing fixtures such as gallons per flush.

McKinstry has estimated that about 4.5 million gallons of water will be saved with the planned upgrades.

Three elementary schools will also be receiving trash compactors to help reduce the volume of garbage, Korinek said.

Installation of the energy-saving measures began in June and should be completed by the first of October.

Other projects paid for through the energy performance contract include some capital improvements that Korinek said the district wouldn't otherwise have wiggle room for without the energy savings program in place.

"A lot of these are energy projects, but some of them are capital improvements that we were able to take money scheduled for capital improvements, leverage that into the project and get those done along with the energy improvements," he said. "We can't spend our capital money on that anymore, because we need that to do other things to increase capacity in the schools. This was a way we could get other projects done."

Korinek said some of these projects include a new chiller replacement — a 160-ton air conditioning unit — at Bordewich-Bray Elementary, new heat pumps at both Fremont and Mark Twain elementray schools, as well as a new gym roof and an improved heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system at Carson Middle School, which is also the recipient of a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) wing addition.

"Without this comprehensive energy services project, the district would have had to pay for the two comprehensive heat pump retrofits out of their capital budget," Davis said.

The energy savings contract is helping to free up capital expenditures so that new additions to schools, like the CMS STEM wing, can be built with existing money.

There are multiple expansion projects at campuses in the district set to begin this school year, part of a comprehensive plan to eliminate reliance on portable classrooms that are just not as energy-efficient as brick-and-mortar structures, Korinek said.

"It's about six times more inefficient to have portable buildings," he said. "We'll have students inside brick-and-mortar buildings that are nicer, cleaner and are a better learning environment with better light and sound."

Around 10,000 square feet of new brick-and-mortar space will be added to Mark Twain Elementary this school year, including about 6,500 square feet of portable classrooms and 3,500 square feet of new kindergarten and pre-school space.

This summer the Carson City Planning Commission also approved special use permits (SUPs) for a 3,000 square foot expansion of Fritsch Elementary School as well as at least 10,000 square feet of added brick-and-mortar structures to replace four portable classroom modulars at Pioneer High School.

Construction at Fritsch will expand the school to more than 57,000 square feet and connect two buildings together.

Pioneer High School's expansion is planned in two phases, Korinek said, the first a tenant improvement remodel of around seven or eight classroom areas scheduled to begin in October.

The project's second phase will be the construction of new brick-and-mortar structures that replace portable classroom modulars, he said. Construction for this phase should start in early 2018.

"It should all be done by the start of the next (2018-19) school year," Korinek said. "We're looking to replace all of the portables. The rest of them should be gone by next year."

The trick, he said, is completing all of the planned construction projects on time while working when school is in session.

"There's a bit of a lag when you're doing these projects while the students are in school," he said. "We have to come up with a safety plan, traffic plan and noise reduction plan."

Fortunately, none of the construction is going to be in high-traffic areas of schools, Davis said, so there should be minimal interruption to students and staff while remodel work is being done.

"Where the location of the construction is happening is off at the end of the buildings, and not anywhere near the main entrances of buildings or the pick up and drop off areas," he said. "There will be very minimal disruption to the classrooms."

Additional construction at Fremont and Bordewich Bray elementaries is also planned.

Fremont Elementary, anticipating increased enrollment with planned growth within its zoning area, is scheduled to have new space built for Career Life Skills classes that will absorb students from Seeliger Elementary School. Other new classroom space will also be added as part of that school's expansion.

Bordewich-Bray is scheduled to have one portable classroom removed, too, and remodeling upgrades performed.

These capital projects are being paid for by a 10-year rollover bond originally passed by voters in 2010 and recently renewed by the 2015 Nevada Legislature for another decade, the school district said.

Newly bonded in January, CCSD has received an additional $16 million in funds toward these capital improvements, Korinek said.

Other improvement projects occurring throughout district include enhancement of the homeside bleachers at the Carson High School football field, replacing boards to improve accessibility in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; new asphalt or crack seal coating at several locations; and new concrete laid down to replace existing structures that have been broken up and may have developed tripping hazards.

"There will be major maintenance that we do every year," said CCSD Capital and Special Projects Manager Mark Johnson. "We do six schools on asphalt to extend the life of the asphalt, so that we don't have to redo it."

Johnson said concrete has been broken up at five or six different campuses; re-roofing needs to be done on five structures this year; and recarpeting completed at two to five different locations.

Johnson said there are about 190 individual maintenance projects currently on the list, ranging from as little as $200 to as much as $20,000 per project.

CCSD has an enrollment of about 7,600 students across ten campuses throughout the Nevada state capital.