At budget-crunching time, school administrators and business officials sometimes find themselves trimming the district's budget for teachers, textbooks, and technology in order to cover ballooning energy costs. Nearly one-third of the energy consumed in the average U.S. school is wasted. The country's least efficient schools use four times more energy per square foot than the most efficient schools. Clearly, schools are spending a lot of money that can be redirected to their primary mission: education. Because strong operations and maintenance (O&M) programs play such a vital role in school energy efficiency, the U.S. Department of Energy released the "Guide to Operating and Maintaining EnergySmart Schools." Developed as a resource of the Department of Energy's EnergySmart Schools Program, it is designed to help districts integrate energy-efficient practices into their O&M programs and to fit O&M into their broad mission and into their overall energy management plan. The guide includes sections that are useful to school board members, senior administrators, business officials, and facilities managers and staff.