By Porscha Hayes, Show-Me Green Schools AmeriCorps VISTA
This year, Missouri Green Schools has the pleasure of recognizing 18 schools for achievements in sustainability, our largest cohort thus far! While the vast majority of recognized schools reside in the St. Louis metropolitan area, Missouri Green Schools has honorees in both the Springfield and Kansas City areas. Our 2023 honorees are recognized on varying levels, with eight Sprout schools, five Seedling Schools, and five Sapling schools. Sprout schools are honored for involving school administration, beginning to benchmark and track improvement, and setting goals towards further advancement of green and healthy practices. Seedling schools additionally document a sustainability-related achievement in at least one educational program.Sapling schools must also document their long term impacts, such as reduction of energy or water usage over a 1 to 3 year period. Here’s what some of our honored schools had to say about the program:
- “Missouri Green Schools has provided us with a framework to help us implement sustainability initiatives in our school. Our students are very invested in making positive change within our school and community and we look forward to achieving our goals!” Sarah Holmes, St. Teresa’s Academy
- “At Brittany Woods MIddle School, students apply the principles of sustainability not just to the planet, but to their own lives. Our community is lifted as students develop personal and group empowerment, manage their resources with increasing thoughtfulness, and work together to create a supportive school environment.”
Anne Cummings, Brittany Woods Middle School
- “This is awesome.”
Ms. Johnson, Normandy Early Childhood Center
Missouri Green Schools is a statewide recognition program that guides schools in holistically improving their school’s green and healthy practices. Schools can enroll anytime and take advantage of the guidance and resources the program offers to help schools take a systems-based approach towards holistic, school-wide, and long-term sustainability. Missouri Green Schools works relentlessly to lower the threshold for more accessible entry into the program and ensures schools on the pathway to whole-school sustainability can start with baby steps. Participating schools are honored at emerging, progressing and advanced levels for their achievements, from Seed which celebrates schools taking their first steps, through Flowering Dogwood which acknowledges comprehensive work across all three of the program’s pillars: reduced environmental impact and cost; improved health and wellness of students and staff; and increased environmental and sustainability literacy. For more information about Missouri Green Schools, including a press release, more statements from honorees, and a list of honorees by level, visit www.showmegreenschools.org.