From city Communications Director Brett Broesder:
Mayor Bill Finch this week unveiled the Interdistrict Discovery Magnet School on Park Avenue as the second LEED Gold certified school in the city as Bridgeport continues to lead the national charge advancing clean and sustainable energy sources and green building construction to reduce the city’s carbon footprint and give kids healthier air to breathe.
“We are committed to lead by example. Discovery Magnet School is a model that provides a state-of-the-art facility in which our kids will learn and also a building and curriculum in which students interact with the environment and nature so they become environmental ambassadors for their kids and grandkids,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “We have great teachers teaching an innovative curriculum to motivated students in a green, healthy building.”
In school terms, LEED is like a report card for buildings, demonstrating to the community that a facility is built and operated in a way that supports the health and well-being of occupants, its neighbors and saves energy, resources and money.
Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet and the Discovery School, which are both Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) schools, are the first of five schools that will be LEED Gold certified as part of the City’s ambitious school construction program initiated under the leadership of Mayor Finch.
The program has created 3,000 jobs and, when completed, 13,000 city students will attend new or renovated schools.
Nearly $730 million has been invested in current, completed and future school construction projects. Once finished, more than half of Bridgeport kids will be attending new or renovated schools.
To achieve LEED certification, a facility must have “green” and sustainable construction and serve as a teaching tool for the children.
According to science teacher Mary Servino, Discovery as a STEM school focuses on sustainability. The school has a curriculum based on environmental education, a single-stream recycling program and an environmental club “so students can grow up and become leaders in helping clean up our environment.”
Servino said she is looking forward to the spring thaw since she conducts many of her lessons outside of the classroom so kids can experience “everything that is around this school and know how beautiful this area is.”
Ø To see video of the event click here: bit.ly/1GovqDr or youtu.be/sJ0aYjwi_VU.
Principal Sangeeta Bella said Discovery School follows “a teaching model of ‘hands on, minds on.’ We are teaching the whole child, and that is what I find fun about this school.”
That includes outside lessons where kids identify species of trees and animal tracks in the property around the school.
“We need to be explorers and adventurers if we are going to be a science magnet school,” she said.
In addition to Fairchild Wheeler and Discover, Harding High School, Roosevelt and Longfellow schools are tracking to be LEED Gold certified.
What BS, how have the graduation rates improved?
This is all nice, but what does it have to do with the mayor? I wonder if the mayor is aware most schools do no recycling.
“The program has created 3,000 jobs and, when completed, 13,000 city students will attend new or renovated schools.
Nearly $730 million has been invested in current, completed and future school construction projects. Once finished, more than half of Bridgeport kids will be attending new or renovated schools.”
Dear Mr. Broesder,
Perhaps you can clarify the above comment regarding 3,000 jobs. Are those full-time jobs with firms in the City or a smuming up of the number of construction workers over the past few years working on City projects? Perhaps when you provide an answer and verifiable source for this claim, you will also indicate how many of the workers are City residents and the names of the largest 10 firms employing them.
Will you please identify the schools you reference (13,000) and the population of each of those schools and when the most recent update was completed? Even better will you disclose the amount spent on each of the schools up to this point as well as for the schools awaiting remedial effort (ex. Harding, Longfellow, Roosevelt, and any other project on the boards but without a Certificate of Occupancy indicating that work has been completed).
I would like to trust the comments you make fully. Will you indulge the readers with such a chart that would verify your statements? Such a chart would make great reading for an informed electorate in an election year, it seems to me. Do you see how job gain history, modern buildings for school-age youth and teachers, and an understanding of public finance will all be subjects served by your fuller disclosures as City Communications Director? Time will tell.