Megan Renihan is the communications coordinator for the Batesville School District in Arkansas. A few years ago, her school district had a big problem: teachers were making less money there than teachers in the rest of the state. Megan and her school district had to do something in order to attract and retain their staff.
So they rolled up their sleeves, got out their pencils, and did the math on a solar-powered future. At the time, the district was spending more than half a million dollars a year on utilities. They thought, “What if we could reduce those costs and put the savings into the pockets of our teachers?”
“We were the first school district in the state of Arkansas to invest in solar panels,” Megan said. Together, the solar power and energy efficiency improvements are saving the district more than $300,000 a year. “And that money is going to continue to go back into our teachers’ salaries. That’s the whole goal.” From all of us at Localyst, and on behalf of all of our teachers and the kids they serve: thank you for doing the math on solar power, Megan!
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