21st+Century+Sustainability+School


 * 21st Century Sustainability High School – New West High School **

Goals: transform Denver West school and community based upon principles of sustainability; revitalize and redevelop the physical plan of West into a modern, energy-efficient, carbon-neutral building. The building sits in the heart of a vital, growing, dynamic urban core—the renaissance of West will aid the in-fill of urban Denver and will create more housing options with an attendant growth in business development.

// The 21 //// st //// Century Sustainability High School -- 7 Essential Attributes //

Financial Sustainability: dedicated to long term planning; elimination of duplicative efforts; commitment to efficiency on all planning levels, in all departments and services. School solicits community investments, exploits external funding opportunities, and invests monies through a foundation dedicated to meeting short and long-term needs of New West in times of external financial stress. Physical Sustainability: school building and grounds maintained through cooperative efforts of students/district/community; efficiency and green upgrades are part of continuous improvement process. Environmental Sustainability: infuse sustainable methodologies and goals across the curriculum; green your life/green your school/green your community through service, study, and employment. Global Sustainability: no one works alone in the world for change, all are connected; curriculum offers global connectivity with local impact. Workforce Sustainability: develop the skills and dispositions necessary for the 21st Century marketplace, community development, and personal citizenship in a diverse culture. Community Sustainability: sustainable communities require leadership skill training at multiple levels of scale within a larger system of ecological relations. A sustainable school provides a venue for learning throughout the entire community. Student Sustainability: service learning provides real world job experience with personal accountability. Completion of academic and service milestones are celebrated. Youth gain community acceptance and become mentors to next generation completing the sustainability cycle. All students can achieve; no excuses. 

We in the teaching profession often despair how we are viewed by the non-teaching public and policy-makers saying to ourselves, "they just don't understand us, what we do in the classroom, the challenges we face." I think that's not so much the problem with our status, and instead I think the situation is how teaching is constructed within our society. Here's what I mean: the entire education enterprise is viewed by most everyone (including too many teachers) as a kind of public utility. As such, the department of education is responsible for disposing of ignorance, turning on the lights of children's minds, maintaining a safe environment, negotiating multiple uncontrollable crises of families and economies, and meeting numerical goals created by politicians. What's so bad with this model? It cannot be sustained. Public utilities work well when we don't have to think about them. Very little of our time is spent in direct contact with the utility--we pay taxes and we expect the utility workers to keep our lights on come what may. And for the most part, that's how it works. The lives of children are a different story. Their minds and dreams can be 'turned on' but no teacher, no curriculum, no expert consultant has //the// switch that can be turned on or off at will for all students in any community. Teachers help parents and families manage the //lives of children//, not commodities, municipal waste, or tons of coal. A sustainable school is integrated with the lives of all who live and work and play in the larger life worlds of the children who attend the school. The interdependencies already exist but because they are not part of what students actually learn and do, there is little constructive feedback to sustain the larger community. Changing the school from public utility to public treasure will take time, effort, and persistence. We won't need to wait for superman to make change happen. Denver Public Schools like the community in which it is embedded, already has the talent and basic human resources to make schools sustainable treasures.



--Jeffrey Miller, CRES/DPS