Missouri Green Schools hosts its annual Meet, Greet, Connect and Share in January as an avenue for schools to connect with one another and share their sustainability goals and progress. MGS enrollees are also encouraged to attend the Connect on the Quest series, designed for Green Schools Quest participants but open to participants in all our programs!

Green Teams ideally consist of enthusiastic individuals who want to build their school’s capacity for sustainable practices. These individuals can be administrators, faculty, staff, parents, community members, students, alumni, and so much more. 

Please check out our What’s in it for me? document for tips on green team recruitment. This document lays out the benefits of joining a green team for teachers, students, custodians, school boards, and so many more. 

Once schools are ready for the Sprout level, they are eligible to register for START. All schools who register for START must meet with START admin for an hour-long virtual walkthrough of the website. MGS+ schools are entitled to 1:1 monthly check-ins that provide ongoing personal development to help build capacity.

START is an acronym for Sustainability Tracking, Analytics, and Roadmapping Tool. This tool tracks your starting point and progress across 53 sustainability-related metrics split into three categories (Organizational Culture, Physical Place, and Educational Program).

There are 53 sustainability-related metrics divided into three categories: Organizational Culture, Physical Place, and Educational Programming. For a full list of those metrics, please visit this webpage.

The START “Survey” is a process that takes schools through all 53 metrics and ensures that they are aware of any updates.

When you fulfill the requirements for the Seed level and are moving on to Sprout, please email info@showmegreenschools.org to notify MGS staff that you are ready for START. If you are an MGS+ school, MGS staff will fill out a START registration form for you. If you are an MGS school, MGS staff will send you the registration form to complete independently. From there, a member of START admin will contact you to schedule a 30-minute walkthrough of the START dashboard.

Schools with 60% or more students receiving free and reduced-price lunch are automatically enrolled in MGS+, where they are eligible for extra support, monthly 1-on-1 meetings with MGS staff, and extra funding as available.

Schools without 60% or more students receiving free and reduced-price lunch will not be eligible to enroll in MGS+.

Your START point person could be the same person as primary or secondary contact; ideally someone comfortable with using a tech-based online dashboard; this could be a community partner, parent, student, or whoever you choose.

If you are having issues with logging in, please email info@showmegreenschools.org to regain access.

In the START tool, metrics are divided into Tiers that depict increasing levels of activity/impact. There are 8 Educational Programming metrics, 20 Organizational Culture metrics, and 23 Physical Place metrics to choose from. We have outlined a pathway to significant, Whole-School impact by ensuring that schools simultaneously address metrics that are nested within each of the 3 spheres (Educational Programming/Organizational Culture/Physical Place).

Schools can identify any 1 goal they wish, so long as that goal aligns with one of the START metrics. You will communicate this goal to MGS staff by emailing info@showmegreenschools.org.

Please contact info@showmegreenschools or hayes@meea.org for assistance.

Energy STAR Portfolio Manager is a benchmarking tool that shows the amount of energy, waste, and water consumption of a determined building. Follow this link for more information on signing up for and using Energy STAR. Here is a list of Energy STAR resources specifically for K-12 schools.

When measuring natural resource use, schools have the opportunity to track their regular rates of resource usage, revisit abnormalities in that usage (i.e. a spike in water usage that indicates a leak), and lower their overall usage, sometimes resulting in financial benefit from lowered use of natural resources.

An Energy STAR score takes into account the physical attributes, purpose, and amount of traffic in your building, so it is tailored to each school. A score of 75 means that your building is a top energy performer and may qualify for Energy STAR certification.

Energy and Water: There aren’t many ways to gather only a portion of a school’s energy usage since the systems are connected throughout the building. Most school buildings have one main electricity, natural gas meter, and water meter and that usage information is available on utility bills. Classes can conduct energy audits as a learning exercise by having students collect information on the lights, electronic devices, and appliances they have in their spaces to find ways to save energy, but these audits won’t include the largest use of energy in a school, heating and cooling systems.

Waste:

• Whole school:
• Some waste haulers can provide volume estimate reports monthly
• Find out your dumpster size from the waste hauler and have students record how full each dumpster is before pick up days. They can calculate monthly waste volume based on dumpster size, % each dumpster is full, and number of pick ups per month. Have students look for trends in which months have the most waste and try to figure out why.
• Portion of school:
• The con to using a representative sample method is that the estimates could be very misleading based on when the measurements are conducted. If only auditing waste a few times per year, try to pick days that are most representative of a “normal” school day to get the most accurate measurements. For example, it would inflate your waste estimates to do the audit on locker clean out or holiday party days and under-represent waste if measured on field trip days. 
• Weigh the different waste streams from a representative sample of classrooms (at least 20-30% of total classrooms and from different grades) to get an average classroom waste volume and multiply by the total number of classrooms.
• Conduct a cafeteria waste audit a few times throughout the school year or monthly to weigh each of the different waste streams and calculate an annual average.
• Combine the classroom waste and cafeteria waste estimates for an annual building level estimate.

Please visit this webpage for more tips on measuring waste.

For tips on measuring water usage, please visit this webpage and listen to this recording on water-saving topics.

Please visit this webpage for more tips on using clean energy, this webpage to learn more about the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, and this webpage for more information on clean energy financing programs.

Missouri Green Schools understands that schools go through large-scale changes beyond the scope of sustainability, and will take into account any abnormal usage due to those changes. Please note these changes in your Request for Review.

Missouri Green Schools levels build upon one another, so you must fulfill criteria of the previous level before moving on to the next level.

When you have identified new primary and/or secondary contacts, please place that information in your school’s annual Request for Review so that MGS staff can update the database.

Snapshot Forms can be found on the START website. Click on a metric you have completed, and click on the blue button that reads ‘Add Attachments’.

Snapshot Forms are brief questionnaires which gather details on the actions you are taking. Schools typically accompany these questionnaires with photos.