After major renovations to update a 30 year-old school building, students in the Daniel Boone Area School District now attend one of Pennsylvania's leading energy efficient school buildings, the Daniel Boone High School Annex.

The school districtintegrated environmentally sound design techniques using the Pennsylvania's Guaranteed Energy Savings Act's energy savings benchmarks and costavoidance objectives.

To commemorate this achievement, as well as an overall commitment to energy efficiency and sustainability, the district is receiving the TraneEnergy Efficiency Leader in Education Award. Dr. Gary Otto, Daniel Boone Area School District Superintendent, will receive the award Nov. 12, at8:30 a.m., at the Daniel Boone High School Annex.

Before renovations were completed for the 2008-2009 school year, the district had minimal use for the 30-year-old former middle school. However,utilizing the facility allows the district to accommodate its growing enrollment numbers. More than 1,100 students attend Daniel Boone HighSchool, and the newly renovated annex accommodates 600 students.

Energy efficient and environmentally responsible renovations included the addition of advanced building control systems, new ultra efficientheating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, doors, windowscand lighting.

"Daniel Boone students, teachers and staff are pleased to be occupying a high performance school," said Otto. "Not only was the project costeffective for our district and the taxpayers, but we're saving considerable dollars going forward through operational savings. This helps us keep moneyin the classroom where it belongs. Even more importantly, our classrooms offer excellent learning environments, which allow teachers to be moreeffective and students to perform at their peak."

In early 2007, Daniel Boone Area School District decision makers evaluated how to accommodate growing enrollment numbers, particularly amongsecondary classes for the 2008-2009 school year and in the future. District leadership then turned to the annex for a high-quality learning environmentsolution.

The Daniel Boone Area School District entered into a guaranteed energy savings project with Trane, assuring energy and operating cost savings tofund a full replacement of HVAC and building control systems, lighting, roof, doors and windows. These upgrades contributed to improved air quality throughout the building, providing a more comfortable learning environment.

The new lighting system incorporates day-lighting, which studies showcontributes to improved student and staff performance.

Taking Advantage of Pennsylvania Guaranteed Energy Savings Act 77District administration used Pennsylvania's Guaranteed Energy Savings Act 77 to implement the Annex building improvements.

Otto stated, "With less than six months to the start of the new school year, district leadership determined that Act 77 provided the greatestability to garner results. This initiative gave the district more control of selecting partners who would take responsibility to complete the projecton time with no change orders, providing improved value and fiscalresponsibility to our community tax payers through guaranteed results."

Act 77 was enacted in 2004 and provides school districts flexibility in remodeling and upgrading facilities for existing buildings without therequirement of an up-front capital budget allocation. The legislation offers a means for Pennsylvania's K-12 schools to overcome capital budgetconstraints, and apply guaranteed cost savings to offset the project costs over the life of the contract, which can be for up to 15 years.

11/14/2008