High Performance Schools Guidelines for New York State: Lessons Learned Developing NY-CHPS

In late 2004, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was invited by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to collaborate on the development of new guidelines for high performance schools. The guidelines meet NYSED’s specific regulations and New York State’s codes while helping planners and designers of new construction and renovation projects to make schools more energy-efficient, healthy, durable and conducive to learning. Much as the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design  (LEED) system promotes high performance design for a variety of building types, school designers have developed guidelines specific to the needs of schools and local climate conditions. NYSERDA and NYSED started the development of their new guidelines by reviewing the best ideas developed by school designers around the country: the CHPS materials from the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, Inc. and MA-CHPS from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. NYSERDA and NYSED wanted to expand several sections within these documents to more comprehensively address indoor environmental quality, operations and maintenance, and durability. To accomplish this, NYSERDA and NYSED developed NY-CHPS. This paper reports on the development process of this important product, the lessons learned from adapting innovative material from other states, the critical input from the NYCHPS advisory council, and the opportunities that may exist for transferring at least part of these guidelines to other states.