{"id":186717,"date":"2026-05-08T00:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/186717\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:22:07","slug":"pennsylvania-lawmakers-push-to-expand-solar-for-schools-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/186717\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania lawmakers push to expand Solar for Schools program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tState lawmakers want more of Pennsylvania&#8217;s schools to go solar. This week at the state capitol, advocates pushed for more schools to sign up for the state&#8217;s Solar for Schools program, which is heading into its second year in existence. 74 K-12 schools received grants last year, with Shapiro administration officials saying that on average, those schools saved more than $5 million a year on electricity. Carlisle and Steel High are among those districts. &#8220;We feel the Industrial Revolution, and today we are feeling a new era of classroom innovation thanks to the Solar for Schools program. Let&#8217;s not leave our school districts in the dark. While energy prices rise, let&#8217;s give them the tools to harvest the sun, slash their overhead and reinvest those millions of dollars where they belong,&#8221; said Shannon Crooker, the Pennsylvania Director for Generation 180. &#8220;Let&#8217;s continue working together to bring solar energy to more schools across Pennsylvania and to show our students that their future is worth our investment of time and resources,&#8221; said Mike Statler, the director of business operations at Carlisle Area School District.  The program is not cost-free. The state would cover half of the cost of installing solar panels, but schools would own the systems themselves.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>State lawmakers want more of Pennsylvania&#8217;s schools to go solar. <\/p>\n<p>This week at the state capitol, advocates pushed for more schools to sign up for the state&#8217;s Solar for Schools program, which is heading into its second year in existence. <\/p>\n<p>74 K-12 schools received grants last year, with Shapiro administration officials saying that on average, those schools saved more than $5 million a year on electricity. <\/p>\n<p>Carlisle and Steel High are among those districts. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We feel the Industrial Revolution, and today we are feeling a new era of classroom innovation thanks to the Solar for Schools program. Let&#8217;s not leave our school districts in the dark. While energy prices rise, let&#8217;s give them the tools to harvest the sun, slash their overhead and reinvest those millions of dollars where they belong,&#8221; said Shannon Crooker, the Pennsylvania Director for Generation 180. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s continue working together to bring solar energy to more schools across Pennsylvania and to show our students that their future is worth our investment of time and resources,&#8221; said Mike Statler, the director of business operations at Carlisle Area School District.  <\/p>\n<p>The program is not cost-free. <\/p>\n<p>The state would cover half of the cost of installing solar panels, but schools would own the systems themselves. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State lawmakers want more of Pennsylvania&#8217;s schools to go solar. This week at the state capitol, advocates pushed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[83291,6589,1718,83290,28,83289,30,9318,29,83286,521,10089,83288,27193,4372,3477,67681,83287,526],"class_list":["post-186717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-business-operation","tag-carlisle","tag-investment","tag-more-school","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-director","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-lawmaker","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-schools-go-solar","tag-school","tag-school-district","tag-schools-program","tag-second-year","tag-solar","tag-state-capitol","tag-state-lawmaker","tag-steel-high","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}