Titans of Ecology

Mary Ball, 16, also a junior, agreed. "I have a big problem with falling asleep in class," she told Grace. "Some of my classes didn't have windows at all last year. This year, it's easier for me to focus."

The new three-story T.C. Williams, home to about 2,000 students, cost about $98 million, which is much higher than the price of many regular high schools its size. Alexandria school officials said the facility's green features account for about $1.2 million of its cost. Still, some educators and parents expressed skepticism about the cost of green schools.

John Wilson, a commercial real estate salesman and the father of student J.W. Wilson, said he was surprised that he had not heard much protest about the school's cost. "I am happy that the students have the best of everything," Wilson said, "but I am not convinced that it always translates into a better education."

The Fairfax County system has poured money into several green projects for schools countywide rather than spending a lot of money on a single campus, Chief Operating Officer Dean Tistadt said. Fairfax has replaced old porous classroom windows, installed more energy-efficient light bulbs and covered some athletic fields with artificial turf to reduce irrigation costs. Tistadt said he is skeptical of rooftop gardens.

"Vegetative roofs are kind of sexy, but you're absorbing water and keeping it on the roof," he said. "If you have leaking problems, how do you find them? We also want to make sure we don't have mold or mildew problems."

It's rare to find a school system that ignores the green trend. Some states are writing legislation that requires all new public buildings be built with LEED standards, said Judy Marks, associate director of the federally funded National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.

For some school systems, it is not feasible to build a school like T.C. Williams. "We haven't discussed doing that because of the cost implications," said Randy Dasher, the Prince William County system's director of construction and planning services. "We've got a lot of kids in trailers."

T.C. Williams students vow an uncommon fealty to their new building. Many said they are resisting the impulse to mark up desks with doodles or bubble-lettered pronouncements of love. The greenness of the campus, they say, heightens the shame over vandalizing an expensive school, especially one whose main purpose is to be "sustainable" and last for a long time. Principal Mel Riddile said the school's new motto is based on the Texas mantra: "Don't mess with T.C."

As students talked at lunch about how they would never write graffiti in their new school, they sounded like ex-convicts wistful about previous transgressions.

"I've doodled my name or 'Titans,' " the school mascot, Mary said.

"I would write my name or draw a flower or a star or a heart," classmate Blair Shipp, 16, said.

"I drew stick figures," J.W. Wilson said.

Would they rat on someone who draws on a school desk or wall? Some things, even in the green school era, will not change.

"I wouldn't say something," Grace said, joking. "I wouldn't want to get beat up."