Back To School Weather Week: Building safe schools

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (WSPA) – School populations in the Upstate are booming and many school districts are adding new construction to keep up with that demand. A big part of the building process involves taking into account how weather impacts the design and function of these schools.

Spartanburg High School is an impressive building.

Dr. Eric Levitt, Chief Operations and Technology Officer for Spartanburg County School District 7, recalled the energy and excitement of the first day at the new Spartanburg High.

“When this school was built, this community supported the building. The families were very excited to bring their kids here because I remember the first day of school here then and it was awesome. These kids were mouths to the floor. They were so excited and just thought it was beautiful.”

This year the school celebrates its fifth year and Spartanburg High is thriving. Dr. Levitt said the building continues to impress.

“We know that an energy-efficient well-designed building promotes learning and the environment that students are in and teachers are in every day has an impact.”

The building is built to withstand all types of weather conditions.

Dr. Levitt explained how the building process comes together:

“So every school building that’s built in South Carolina goes to a very rigorous certification process. It’s called the Office of School Facilities so they are a governing body at every step. Literally every step of the building process goes through F. to get certified so one of the things among minis is that the building is built to tornado standards, hurricane standards, heavy rain so forth, and those type of things even earthquakes because even because South Carolina has a few earthquakes so the buildings are built withstand those types of weather events.”

School designs have changed significantly over the past 20 years. It’s not just enough to protect students from bad weather, newer schools try to take advantage of the weather to be more economically and environmentally friendly while saving money to heat and cool buildings.

Dr. Levitt said there are several features that add to the school’s efficiency.

“The windows in this building they have something called a low glaze finish. It’s nontoxic. You can’t see it only does it tent to the windows so it reduces inside the building, so it reduces the thermal transmission of the building so the building stays cooler when it’s hot out. And in the winter it’s warmer and will retain heat.”

Also, he added, “If you look at the kind of yellow light brick that’s another type of insulation system that has something called solar radiation index and what that does is it reflects certain wavelengths of the sun and keep the building more efficient.”

Not only is District 7 taking advantage of the weather, they are winning awards for their building.

Spartanburg High became the ninth high school nationwide, and the first in South Carolina, to earn level two Green Globes Certification from the Green Building Initiative for resource efficiency and reduction of environmental impact.

Spartanburg High also features a wetland area and a retention pond that captures rainwater that is used for on-campus irrigation.

“Having that type of efficiency one- prevents you from having to update constantly or upgrade constantly because we know that the equipment is going to last longer building school buildings we think of in terms of 50 or 60 years but if you have a building built like a Spartanburg high school we might be able to get 70 or 75 years out of it because it’s so future proof in terms of energy efficiency that we may not need something for a longer amount of time,” according to Dr. Levitt.

New schools are being built every year and school districts construct buildings with weather safety and operation costs in mind. Spartanburg High shines as an example of how sustainability and educational goals can work hand in hand.

As Dr. Levitt said, “And that’s not to say that an older building anywhere great learning and teaching doesn’t go on because it goes on if you have a good teacher. But we just know that the environment does have a positive impact on students.”

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