City schools score green award

The Lynchburg City School division has won the top honor for its size category in the Virginia School Board Association’s Green School Challenge.

At a school board meeting Tuesday, retired-deputy superintendent Roger Roberts told board members that the selection as the top energy-saving school division in the middle-sized group came as a pleasant surprise to administrators.

Roberts, who continues to work part time for the division through the early retirement program, said that one big factor that had weighed in Lynchburg’s favor was that the board passed an official policy last October on energy guidelines.

He also lauded the efforts of students and staff at the schools to cut energy and building costs. Efforts included simple steps such as turning off lights, computers and printers at the end of the day.

All told, the division saved an equivalent of $144,000 worth of electricity, $17,000 in natural gas and $8,000 in water this past fiscal year from the year prior to that. Roberts said that because energy costs increased last year, the school system did not actually spend less on energy, but that the school system would have been in much worse shape if it had not been able to cut back.

“It couldn’t have happened without all the students, staff and faculty making it happen,” Roberts said. He said the school system stands to do even better this fiscal year, because the school division is beginning the year with energy saving proce-dures already in place.

In other business, school board members discussed, but did not vote on proposed legislative positions. That vote will take place at the Nov. 17 school board meeting, set for 6 p.m., following the board’s joint meeting with Lynchburg City Council at 4:30 p.m. in the school administration building.