To get the certification, the school had to attain a certain score based on five criteria: culture and community, school sustainability, healthy schools, curriculum integration and innovation. Principal Elaine Justice said receiving the recognition is a testament to a school-wide effort. “This is not one person’s vision. This is the vision of multiple teachers and the students, parents and everyone working together,” she said. Justice said the school’s path toward “green” status began a number of years ago with the start of a recycling program by school counselor Bryan Smith, who retired last year. Recycling continued to grow; and teacher Shannon Byrd has watched students become more and more involved as the school has participated in a program with TerraCycle, a company that promotes environmental awareness and works with schools and others to eliminate waste. It collects packaging and materials that are difficult to recycle and repurposes the waste into products such as school supplies, flower pots and garden supplies and unique gifts. The students love seeing the juice pouch turned into a pencil pouch or using a notebook binder made from the materials they collected. “My favorite part of this is the student involvement,” she said. “They want the pencil pack or that notebook.”