From the outside, one may not notice that certain schools in the area are implementing sustainable energy practices. That’s kind of the point, staff say.
“We kind of want to keep them out of sight, out of mind. We just know that not everybody thinks they’re aesthetically pleasing,” Jeff Rooks, Affton School District’s Director of Buildings and Grounds, said, in reference to the district’s solar panels atop its buildings.
Though because these systems remain virtually invisible, there is a lack of awareness in the community about them. Keep reading to learn more about how your community’s school district has gone green.
Affton School District
Perhaps the most robust effort in the area to bring sustainable energy into a district has been the work done by Rooks and his department partner Edin Besic, Affton’s Construction Project Manager.
When Rooks took over as Affton’s Director of Buildings and Grounds in 2019, one of his first goals was to conduct an energy audit — essentially check for energy efficiency across the district. Things such as HVAC, lighting and temperature controls — and even doors, roofs and windows — were looked at.
“The Energy Star rating is based upon schools of similar age and similar size. It’s all of your compiled utility bills, and you’re on the scorecard with all the other schools of that size in the nation,” Rooks said.
The results across Affton, at first, were less than satisfactory; Rogers Middle School, for example, scored an eight out of 100.
“There were auditoriums and gymnasiums with nobody in them, but it was 65 degrees in there. Old incandescent lighting, fluorescent lighting,” Rooks said. “We were failing. Like, dramatically failing … it’s almost like we were throwing money out the door.”
The biggest issue discovered shocked even Rooks, who has been in school district maintenance for 27 years: Affton High School was still running on steam heat.
“I had never seen (that) in my time … I thought this didn’t even exist anymore, but it did. That is just an extremely inefficient way to heat a building,” Rooks said. “(We) found out there was steam leaking in places, so it was running completely inefficiently.”
Following the audit and results that came with it, Rooks and Besic got to work modernizing systems. After the more typical systems were remedied, Rooks began to look into the implementation of solar across Affton.
“I knew at the time … that there were still tons of incentives out there coming from the state, coming from federal, coming from Ameren on those things. It was just kind of low-hanging fruit, really, and I knew we could do those changes at minimal cost to the district,” Rooks said.
Because solar is “kind of a risky new adventure,” Rooks and his team decided to use the district’s early childhood center as the test subject for the project before choosing how to proceed with additional buildings. The early childhood center also had a newer roof, which is a necessity for solar panels.
“We’ve used the early child care center as our guinea pig on two energy-efficient projects. One was the solar … but another one was our building automation system, which monitors all of our HVAC systems. It’s a small building; you can really kind of get a good barometer on how much it affects the overall energy consumption,” Rooks explained. “You can kind of watch it under a microscope to make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.”
This new array of solar panels proved immediately to be beneficial — not only in its environmental impacts, but also on a monetary level.
“We’re dropping 20%, 25%, 30% on our energy costs, especially when it got into summertime, and there were no kids.” Rooks said. “We saw success.”
The savings made possible by the solar panels were watched for a year before Rooks presented the findings to Affton’s Board of Education. At that time, Ameren and the federal government were giving incentives for installing solar, both of which have since halted, prompting the district to install solar panels at four more of its buildings: Mesnier Primary School, Affton High School, Rogers Middle School and Gotsch Intermediate School.
“With our solar, we do not power anything in the buildings. It’s all just sent back to Ameren, to the grid,” Rooks explained. “The solar array is installed, and then a separate meter is installed called a bidirectional meter. So, it’s technically sending power we harvest back to Ameren. Now, it’s metered just the same way as your usage. On our bill, we see what we provided at a rate, and then what we used at a rate.”
However, Affton’s parking lot lights at the high school, Mesnier and Gotsch are completely powered using what has been absorbed from solar arrays, meaning those parking lots are lit for free. As other parking lot renovations are needed at other district buildings, this initiative will be expanded.
“Between (Besic’s) efforts and mine, we have reduced our energy consumption by 50%. That was my lifetime goal, but we’ve already achieved it. That alone annually is a $350,000 savings to the taxpayers. We just want to be good stewards. We treat this like it is our house — we wouldn’t want to be wasting money on energy,” Rooks said. “Whether you’re into the environmental footprint, reducing your carbon footprint, we’re doing that. But I think as for the taxpayers, it’s just seeing the savings for what you’re putting your money into in the school district.”
Another environmentally-friendly project at Affton is Roger Middle School’s new geothermal heating and cooling system. One-of-a-kind across South County schools, this is currently the most energy-efficient technology available to heat and cool a building. Though estimates are still to be determined, it is expected that this system will cause a 30% drop in energy usage; 30% in savings is also expected. Though the federal government, under the current administration, has backed off of initiatives surrounding solar and wind energy, geothermal energy was retained — something this project “hinged on,” per Rooks.
In the immediate future, the district has plans for the addition of such systems at both Gotsch and Mesnier. Other energy-saving initiatives Rooks has discussed implementing are small wind turbines dubbed “tulips,” though his overall goal surrounding energy is for one of the district’s buildings to be a net zero building — its usage equaling what it has generated.
“It’s a dream, but I think we may be able to attain it here in the next decade,” Rooks said.
Hancock Place School District
South County’s smallest district, Hancock Place, is another in the area that has green energy practices. The district has had solar panels installed at all of its buildings, including central office, for over a decade.
“For a district as small as ours, we try to be thoughtful about where we make investments and also about where we could potentially find some long-term efficiencies. Unless you have a giant solar field, you’re not going to generate enough power to run your district, but what we were hoping to do is at least mitigate some of our costs. It’s a small percentage of our overall use, but we’re able to hold that small percentage at a close dollar amount,” Kevin Carl, Superintendent of Schools, said.
Carl shared that while the percentage of energy that solar provides is fairly low — approximately 1% — the system can educate students about how sustainable energy can be a benefit. Educational components surrounding the addition of solar energy were heavily implemented years ago when the panels were installed, though through time, have faltered. Carl shared that some students and faculty may not even be aware of the district’s solar panels.
In addition to implementing solar energy, Hancock Place has done water and lighting retrofits throughout the district. Most recently, it received an EPA grant under the Clean School Bus program and was awarded six brand new electric school buses — a large enough fleet to serve its entire district. This was fully funded by the grant at no cost to the school district.
“Of course, you’ve got the energy benefit. You don’t have idling buses with diesel fuel,” Carl said. “We estimate with those buses that we’ll probably save, per bus, about $2,000 a year in energy costs.”
Mehlville School District
On the other side of the size spectrum, South County’s largest school district, the Mehlville School District, also has multiple solar energy systems. Seven of Mehlville’s buildings have solar panels: Beasley Elementary, Bernard Middle, Buerkle Middle, Hagemann Elementary, Mehlville High, Oakville High and the Witzel building. Five of these projects kicked off in 2012, while the other two were done in 2015.
Other energy-efficent projects include the switch of all lightbulbs to LED and HVAC upgrades. All buildings recycle, as well. Wohlwend Elementary School is also home to a prairie, alleviating drainage issues, helping with water quality and eliminating the need to mow a large area of turf.
Lindbergh Schools
While Lindbergh Schools does not currently have solar panels, the district has taken several measures to work towards energy efficiency. In 2020, the district partnered with Navitas, entering into an energy savings performance contract; this partnership included a district energy audit, identifying areas where buildings could operate more efficiently.
It should be noted that the Farmers Club is equipped to accommodate solar power should the district decide to add it in the future. In addition, per Chief Communications Officer Beth Johnston, once the Farmers Club opens, it will include energy-saving systems such as geothermal heating and cooling, as well as rainwater harvesting to provide water for the raised garden beds.
Bayless School District
The Bayless School District does not currently have any solar panels installed, though the district shared that it “strive(s) to be energy-efficient and do(es) common things like recycling.”
Editor’s note: This article originally stated that Hancock Place’s solar panels were installed in 2012, as that is the information originally received from the district. After The Call’s press time, information clarifying that the panels were installed in 2014 was recieved. 
South St. Louis County News

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