After a rural school district in Batesville, Arkansas installed solar panels at their schools, they turned a $250,000 annual budget deficit into a $1.8 million surplus — enough to give every teacher a raise of up to $15,000, CBS News reports.
Today, more than 9,000 schools across the country are using solar power and over 6 million students attend a solar-powered school, according to Generation 180, a clean energy nonprofit.
However, Batesville School District seems to be the first one to turn its savings into paychecks.
With annual salaries averaging around $45,000 in the school district, many educators worked second jobs or left for better-paying opportunities.
The district was not only left with a retention problem but also reported having difficulty attracting new teachers to a town of only 10,000 residents.
“We were willing to take some risks because the option was we weren't getting anywhere. Our budget was going nowhere,” superintendent Michael Hester said in a Harvard education podcast episode.
“And so we were trying to find ways to create space inside our budget that we already had. Out of desperation comes innovation.”
After conducting an energy audit, Hester was shocked after discovering that his district could save at least $2.4 million over a span of 20 years if the district opted for clean-energy alternatives like solar power.
The school district transformed an unused field into a solar energy farm and covered the front of its high school in 1,500 panels.
“Batesville has reduced the checks they write to utilities and increased the checks they write to teachers,” Rick Vance, regional director at Entegrity, a sustainability and energy services company, commented.
As a result, schools within this Arkansas district are seeing an increase in resumes and fewer resignations, Superintendent Hester told CBS News.
The project’s success has since inspired others in the surrounding area to follow suit.
“There’s at least 20 school districts just in our area that have emulated our model,” Superintendent Hester said.
“We have the numbers to prove and to show from performance that we’re walking the walk. That’s a slam-dunk for districts around us.”
You may also like: This clear coating 'secretly' turns windows into solar panels: 'Without sacrificing aesthetics'
A version of this article was originally published in The 2022 Education Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image by Manny via Pexels
