It's easy to be green

A new Albuquerque public school to be built using energy efficiency standards

Groundbreaking on new Family School

The Albuquerque Public Schools district is finding it easier to be green these days. It broke ground Monday on a school that will be a LEED Silver project under the U.S. Green Building Council's rating system. All that means is that the new Family School is being built using tough new energy efficiency standards. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The school will serve students in kindergarten through 8th grade who work together in mixed grade classrooms for a half day. Their parents home school their children for the other half of the day.

The school's permanent campus will be adjacent to McKinley Middle School on Comanche Northeast. The new building will replace the current Family School, which is in portables adjacent to Bel-Air Elementary in the Northeast Heights.

APS Associate Superintendent Eduardo Soto told a group of parents, students and officials that the new $5.8 million school will be paid for by bonds approved by voters in elections in 2006 and 2007.

At Monday's groundbreaking, parents and students used trowels to dig holes and plant flowers on the site where wells will be dug as part of a ground source heat pump system. 

“The ground source heat pump system uses the constant temperature and heat storage capacity of the earth to both heat and cool the buildings,” Soto said. “It involves miles of underground water pipes.”

As a LEED project, the structure must meet energy-saving and sustainability features. The new school, which serves about 225 students, will be ready for the 2009-10 school year.

Family School Principal Gael Keyes noted that Albuquerque voters have been very supportive of the school. State Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones also secured about $90,000 for a theatre at the school.

The new 27,120-square-foot facility includes 12 classrooms, a science lab, a multi-purpose assembly and theatre space and administrative offices. The building is arranged so that it encloses a protected courtyard that includes demonstration gardens and an aquatic life pond.

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