The U.S. Department of Energy's Rebuild America EnergySmart Schools program provides school boards, administrators, and design staff with guidance to help make informed decisions about energy and environmental issues important to school systems and communities. "The National Best Practices Manual for Building High Performance Schools" is a part of the suite of products developed to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in schools. It was developed specifically for architects and engineers who are responsible for designing or retrofitting schools, and for the project managers who work with the design teams. The "Energy Design Guidelines for High Performance Schools," available for seven climate zones across the United States, was developed for school boards, administrators, and design staff to help make informed design decisions about energy and environmental issues important to school systems and communities. The design strategies presented here are organized into 10 chapters covering important design disciplines and goals: site design; daylighting and windows; energy-efficient building shell; lighting and electrical systems; mechanical and ventilation systems; renewable energy systems; water conservation; recycling systems and waste management; transportation; and resource-efficient building products. An additional chapter addresses commissioning and maintenance practices. Applying these guidelines will result in schools that are healthy, comfortable, energy efficient, resource efficient, water efficient, safe, secure, adaptable, and easy to operate and maintain. This manual provides details and implementation rules for individual design strategies. Though these individual strategies can improve a building's energy efficiency, only through whole-building analysis and integrated design can energy and cost concerns be balanced most effectively. A list of commissioning references and resources is included. Most chapters contain tables, footnotes, figures, and references. [The National Best Practices Manual for High Performance Schools was adapted from the Collaborative for High Performance Schools Inc.'s Best Practices Manual, Volume II. Modifications were developed by Eley Associates and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The adaptation was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs. The commissioning section of this manual is a modified version of the Building Commissioning Guidelines prepared for Pacific Gas & Electric Company by Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. for the Energy Design Resources program. Certain sections of this document were excerpted and modified from Commissioning for Better Buildings in Oregon, written by PECI for the Oregon Office of Energy, and Building Commissioning: The Key to Quality Assurance, written by PECI for the U.S. Department of Energy's Rebuild America program.]