Seattle Public Schools Recognized as 2026 Zero+ Champion of Sustainability for Advancing High-Performance School Design

McKinstry, in partnership with Lumen Field, launched the Zero+ Champions of Sustainability Awards to recognize organizations making measurable progress in sustainability.

McKinstry is proud to recognize Seattle Public Schools (SPS) as a 2026 Zero+ Champion of Sustainability for turning its climate commitments into high-performance school buildings and expanding the use of on-site renewable energy across its campuses.

As Washington’s largest school district, serving roughly 49,000 students, SPS has an opportunity to make sustainability part of everyday life for thousands of students. The district is doing that through voter-approved capital investments, high-performance building design and on-site renewable energy generation that reduces the environmental impact of its facilities while creating healthier, more modern learning environments.

The clearest example is the new John Rogers Elementary School, which opened for the 2025-26 school year as Washington’s first net-zero energy school.

Setting a New Standard for School Design

The 82,000-square-foot John Rogers Elementary replaced a 1956 school and serves roughly 500 K-5 students in Seattle’s Matthews Beach neighborhood. Its design combines geothermal wells beneath the sports fields for heating and cooling, mass-timber and steel construction, daylighting and biophilic design and rooftop solar generation.

Sized to help offset the building’s energy use, the 466-kW rooftop solar array was structured to qualify for the federal Investment Tax Credit, helping stretch public investment while turning the school’s roof into an on-site source of clean energy. The result is more than a high-performance building. John Rogers gives students a firsthand look at how energy-efficient buildings can operate, making the school itself part of the learning environment.

From One School to a Districtwide Strategy

John Rogers is part of a broader effort, undertaken over the past two decades, to incorporate energy conservation and carbon reduction strategies into SPS facilities. Recent projects, including Van Asselt School–Interim Site, Asa Mercer International Middle School, and Alki Elementary School used mass timber structural systems and incorporated newer concrete technologies, further reducing CO2 emissions. These projects further district policies and resolutions focused on climate change, sustainability, and clean energy.

For SPS, those investments create an opportunity to address multiple priorities at once: replacing aging infrastructure, improving building performance, supporting healthier learning environments and reducing the environmental impact of school operations.

The approach also recognizes the long-term value of designing schools for the communities they will serve for decades. Rather than treating sustainability as an add-on, SPS is incorporating energy performance and clean energy systems into major capital investments from the start.

Making Sustainability Part of the Learning Environment

SPS’s sustainability strategy extends beyond energy performance. By integrating technologies such as geothermal heating and cooling, rooftop solar and high-performance building systems into schools, the district is creating opportunities for students to see sustainability in action every day.

John Rogers provides a particularly visible example. Its geothermal system, solar array and building design allow students to learn in a facility that demonstrates how energy, architecture and the environment can work together. For a district serving nearly 49,000 students, that creates an impact beyond a single building. Each high-performance school can serve as both a place to learn and a demonstration of what is possible in the next generation of public infrastructure.

Zero+ Champion of Sustainability

Seattle Public Schools is demonstrating how large-scale school investments can connect climate goals with the everyday needs of students and communities. From Washington’s first net-zero energy school to additional solar and efficiency projects across the district, SPS is making sustainability part of how it plans, builds and operates its facilities.

McKinstry and Lumen Field recognize Seattle Public Schools as a 2026 Zero+ Champion of Sustainability for translating ambitious climate commitments into tangible investments that will shape the schools where Seattle students learn for decades to come.