Growing Green, Healthy Schools in West Hempstead

The West Hempstead School District’s newly created Green Team is growing.

The group held its second meeting of the school year at the West Hempstead Middle School on Wednesday night and initiative is receiving enthusiastic support from students, teachers and parents, alike.

According to Joe Bonasia, a teacher at West Hempstead High, “This is part of an overall campaign to make the school district as green as we can by conserving energy and becoming as environmentally sustainable as possible.”  

Under the guidance of Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham, who presided over the meeting, the Green Team formed committee groups that reflect their areas of interest. The primary committees include School Gardens, Energy Efficiency, Reducing Waste and Environmental Studies.  Each committee will focus their efforts on maximizing resources to create green initiatives that will benefit the school district and potentially the community at large.

Creating school gardens captured the attention of West Hempstead Middle School student Svetlana Lagos. The sixth grader tends a garden of her own at home and after the first Green Team meeting, came prepared with a notebook of suggestions.  The School Gardens committee of seven came up with an action plan to do further researc, seek out a possibe location and other resources to plant the district’s first school garden. The intention is to start with one garden, and then expand to other schools, if it does well. 

The Environmental Studies committee will focus on courses that lend themselves to teaching students how to engage in and learn from their natural surroundings, through hands-on projects and broader field trips.

“I want to help develop within the schools a sense that education doesn’t have to be limited to the indoors, to just the classroom,” said Terry Ganley, principal of the George Washington Elementary School.  

All the schools in the district have already made simple, but effective changes in their energy consumption. Some schools replaced the fluorescent light bulbs that lit the entrances with new energy saving bulbs which use only one-tenth of the energy. 

Technology Director Vince Fleck said, “Energy saving sensor lights have also been installed in every classroom and office in the district’s schools and it's produced great savings.”

However, when it comes to recycling, some of the members of the Reducing Waste committee felt there was definitely room for improvement.  West Hempstead High School students Emily Lynn Corigliano, Amanda Lombardo and Cristina Phillips noted there was a need not only for more trash receptacles in the schools, but also suggested recycling bins on the sports fields during games and reestablishing Environmental Clubs in both the middle and high schools.

With the Green Team leading the way, the West Hempstead School District is well on its way to creating environmentally friendly schools.  If you’d like to become a member The Green Team, you can join them at their next meeting on November 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the cafeteria of the West Hempstead Middle School.