September 8, 2026 | In Air Quality, Energy, Resources, Sustainability

A Partnership That Puts Students First

What GGI and NSBA Are Building Together

Some partnerships live on a logo wall. Others show up in the air kids breathe every day at school. GGI’s partnership with the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is the second kind, and this fall it’s converging in a way worth pausing on: a national magazine feature, a podcast conversation, a conference stage, and a membership opportunity that puts real tools in the hands of the people who can act on all of it, your school board.

A Mission Built for Every Student, in Every Community

NSBA states its own mission and vision plainly. Its mission, in its own words, is to “equip school board members with resources to advocate for each student in each community.” Its vision follows the same throughline: every school board should be positioned to help each student reach their fullest potential through a fair, high-quality education, regardless of where they live.

That mission and vision are precisely why GGI’s work belongs alongside NSBA’s. You cannot advocate for a student’s potential while ignoring the air they breathe for seven hours a day. Indoor air quality is not a side issue to educational equity. It is one of its most overlooked levers, and it is one where school boards, not just facilities directors, have real authority to act.

When Facilities Became a Board-Level Priority:

The August ASBJ Feature

NSBA’s American School Board Journal captured this belief directly in its August 2026 issue, in a feature written by GGI’s own founder and CEO, Jill Buck, alongside longtime K-12 facilities expert Ken Wertz. The article profiled six exemplary districts, each of which turned indoor air quality from a maintenance afterthought into a leadership priority:

Issaquah School District 411 (Suburban, WA): Moved from reactive maintenance to a data-driven, policy-first approach
Tornillo Independent School District (Rural, TX): A lean, three-school district stretching grant dollars for building envelope and HVAC upgrades
East St. Louis School District 189 (Urban, IL): A $35 million modernization targeting net-zero carbon emissions
Boston Public Schools (Urban, MA): Real-time pollutant monitoring across a 119-building portfolio
Salamanca City Central School District (Rural & Tribal, NY): IAQ work grounded in Seneca stewardship principles
Prince George’s County Public Schools (Suburban, MD): A fleet of 500+ air scrubbers and dehumidifiers backing a districtwide Climate Change Action Plan

The throughline was strikingly consistent. Boards and superintendents who treated air quality as core to the educational mission, not a budget line item, saw reduced chronic absenteeism, stronger staff retention, and buildings that finally matched the ambitions of the students inside them. As Issaquah School District board member A.J. Taylor put it, “air quality isn’t just a facilities priority,” it is central to whether students and teachers can thrive at all.

The piece distilled four pillars any district can apply, regardless of size or budget:

Shift organizational culture from reactive to proactive
Prioritize preventative maintenance and strategic funding
Implement data-driven monitoring systems
Foster collaboration and transparency with the community

(Want more? Jill went deeper on facilities and IAQ leadership in the latest GGI Radio podcast episode, covering much of the same ground from a different angle.)

Where This Work Takes the Stage:

The 2026 CUBE Annual Conference

If the ASBJ article is the “what,” the Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) Annual Conference is where the “how” gets demonstrated live. GGI is proud to be a Diamond Sponsor of this year’s event.

At a glance:

Event: 2026 CUBE Annual Conference, October 1–3, Chicago
Session: “Better Attendance, Stronger Outcomes, Smarter Investments: The School Board’s Role in Healthy Schools & Indoor Air Quality”
When: Friday, October 2, 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
GGI presenters: Andrew Kamali (Capacity Building Program Manager), L. Wayles Wilson (Training & Education Manager), Farish Sawyer (IAQ Education Specialist)
District presenters: Asher Clissold & Maria Carvalho (Boston Public Schools); Antonio Simmons & Paul Booher (Bibb County School District)

That district lineup is not a coincidence, it’s the partnership working exactly as intended. Boston Public Schools, whose story ran in NSBA’s national magazine, is now standing on an NSBA conference stage walking board members through how to replicate it.

It also carries real weight for the 2027 Magna Awards:

Attend this session: 100 points
Submit a new EPA-aligned IAQ Management Plan: up to 100 points
Document GHG emissions: up to 50 points
500 points available in total

GGI has covered the 2027 Magna Awards in depth already, including how the new Urban, Suburban, and Rural categories level the playing field and how to turn an IAQ Management Plan into your first step toward national recognition. Winning districts can receive a $5,000 Grand Prize, and every winner is featured in the April 2027 issue of ASBJ. Applications are due October 31, 2026, so a CUBE session attended three weeks before the deadline is a meaningful head start, not just a nice-to-have.

A Free Place to Start:

GGI’s IAQ Course Library

Board members who can’t make it to Chicago, or who want a running start before the session, don’t have to wait. GGI’s free IAQ course library offers the same foundational thinking the CUBE presenters will bring to the stage. Unit 1, Course 1, “Creating an Energy Efficient IAQ Management Plan,” is the natural entry point, worth up to 100 Magna Award points on its own. It’s the same groundwork GGI’s CUBE presenters teach in their day jobs, packaged as a self-paced course any board member can start today.

Why This Points Back to NSBA Membership

Here is the throughline:

A national board mission built on equity and student potential.
A national publication documenting exactly what that mission looks like in practice.
A podcast and a conference stage where the districts profiled in that publication show up to teach it.

All of it exists because NSBA has built the infrastructure, the community, the advocacy, the training, the publication, the annual convening, that makes this kind of knowledge-sharing possible at national scale.

That infrastructure is available to your district. NSBA membership covers your entire leadership team: every board member, your superintendent, deputy and assistant superintendents, and support administrators. It includes:

ASBJ digital access
Topical webinars and the Policy Hour webinar series
Legal Clips
Discounts on Signature Events like CUBE itself

In practical terms, NSBA membership is how a board member goes from reading about East St. Louis’s transformation to sitting in a room with the people who led it.

Healthy schools don’t happen by accident. They happen when boards treat air quality, attendance, and student well-being as core governance work, not someone else’s department. NSBA gives board members the national community and resources to lead that work. GGI gives them the free, practical tools to start it immediately. Together, that’s a partnership worth joining.