In order to improve energy conservation as well as save money, the district has entered into an agreement with the energy-saving company Cenergistic. Part of the agreement requires the district to hire an energy specialist who will supervise and report on district energy usage, and former administrator Dwight Stoppel was hired for the position after the agreement was approved on Monday, July 9.

Cenergistic is a company that works to conserve energy for various organizations, school districts, ministries, healthcare institutions and universities. According to Stoppel, the district hired him for this position in order for the energy specialist to be someone who maintains the success of the program. Last year, the district spent $2 million on utilities. With the aid of Stoppel and Cenergistic, the district hopes to save $4.4 million over the next 10 years in energy consumption.

Previously, Stoppel has been a substitute teacher, assistant football coach and a para-educator in the De Soto school district and as an administrator for the Osage City Public Schools and the Scott City Public Schools.

Stoppel’s job is to monitor the energy usage of each district building, analyze monthly utility bills, promote energy saving habits to district staff and prevent energy wasting by the district.

“Conserving energy requires a change in usage habits of every energy consumer,” Stoppel said. “Habits are hard to change without continuous support. Other programs that leave the change solely up to the participants do not usually succeed. The individual support provided by the energy supervisor makes the program successful.”

Stoppel reports to district director of facilities Steve Deghand, whose goal is to save money that could be applied more to education than energy.

“We have a limited amount of money from the state of Kansas and we want to maximize that money for the classroom, as opposed to gas usage and electricity usage,” Deghand said.

Acoording to Deghand, the district pays Stoppel from the energy savings. If the district does not save enough money, Cenergistic will pay the difference, preventing the district from losing money by hiring an energy specialist.

Additionally, the entire program is paid for by the generated savings.

“That’s how confident they are with a full-time energy specialist that we will have savings well above [the goal],” Deghand said.

Deghand said one of the objectives of this program is changing the way people use energy.

“This system is a behavioral system,” Deghand said. “It’s changing behavior and that’s hard to do. We’re getting people to look differently at energy usage.”

Stoppel works to do this by visiting schools and monitoring the energy usage by trying to visit each school at least twice a week.

“[My short term goal] is to be in the buildings daily making observations and adjustments to save energy, and talking with students, staff and administration 80 percent of my working day,” Stoppel said. “[My long term goal] is to cut energy cost across the district saving taxpayer dollars to save jobs and dollars for education.”

Sophomore Caitlin Alley thinks that an energy specialist will be beneficial.
“It’s a certain necessity we need,” Alley said. “It may not be the world’s most important job, but it may be something we need.”

Stoppel says that he is pleased to be a part of saving money for the school.

“This program is intended to help all of us: it should mean students and staff are more comfortable during class and scheduled activities, it saves valuable dollars for education, and it saves natural resources for our future,” Stoppel said. “I’m glad to be part of this effort.”