Angela Girolle has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for more than 20 years, and over the years she’s noticed a change in her school: it’s getting hotter.
Some days, temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom. Like many people on the East CoastThe school has no air conditioning. When it’s hot, children don’t eat or drink enough water, she said. “Children are coming into the nurse’s office with dizziness, headaches and stomach aches – all because of the heat and dehydration,” she said.
To combat the heat, students are allowed to keep water on their desks, but this also poses challenges: “They’re constantly refilling their water bottles, which means they have to take breaks during the day, and everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “It takes away from class time.”
The impact of extreme heat on schools and child care is starting to attract the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress said: The report was released Regarding this issue, in April The Federation of American ScientistsNonprofit policy organization.
“The average school building in the U.S. is almost 50 years old,” said Allie Schneider, a policy analyst and co-author of the report at the Center for American Progress. “Schools and child care facilities were built in areas where maybe 30 or 15 years ago they didn’t need air conditioning for at least a large part of the year, and now it’s becoming a more pressing issue.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “This is really important not just for their physical health, but for their learning outcomes,” she said.
Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own report It details some of the effects of heat on children, noting that children are more susceptible to heatstroke and heat exhaustion than adults because they have a harder time regulating their body temperature and take longer to sweat.
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Children don’t always follow their body’s signals about heat, and adults may need to remind them to drink water or play outside. Kevin Turan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said the constant need to monitor heat safety makes it harder to teach. “The mindset has shifted to safety rather than instruction,” Turan said. “Kids don’t know how to handle the heat.”
To keep the classroom cool, the teacher turns off the lights, but the students fall asleep. “They’re lethargic,” the teacher says.
To protect children, The school suspended classes The temperature is too high. When the temperature rises, Children are absent from schoolHeat makes learning difficult, especially for low-income students. Research in 2020 They tracked the performance of students who attended schools without air conditioning and took the PSAT at least twice, and found that increases in average outdoor temperatures correlated with decreased improvement in students’ performance when they retaken the test.
Touran and Girol said increased school security since 9/11 has eliminated cooling options like leaving doors and windows open for ventilation, and the threat of school shootings has exacerbated the situation. Students and teachers are trapped in classrooms that are too hot. “Teachers are telling us they’re getting headaches and symptoms of heatstroke and leaving the classroom,” Touran said. “At 100 degrees, it’s very uncomfortable. Your clothes stick to you.”
The Center for American Progress report joins calls from other advocacy groups to create federal guidelines that schools and child care facilities can adopt “to ensure children are not forced to learn, play or exercise in dangerously hot environments,” Schneider said. Some states already have standards, but they vary by state. California requires child care facilities to keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommended temperature is 74 to 82 degrees. Some states, such as Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on extremely hot days. Schneider said federal guidelines would help all school districts set protective standards using the latest scientific evidence.
In June, 23 health and education advocacy groups signed the petition. letter They made similar calls to the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect children. Recommendations included publishing plans that schools can adopt to deal with high temperatures, encouraging states to devote more resources to installing air conditioning in schools, and providing school districts with information about the risks of heatstroke.
“We know that school infrastructure is overwhelmed by the heat, and without a better system to advise schools on what measures to take, it’s going to be a bit of a lawless zone,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.
Long-term solutions include upgrading school infrastructure, but the need for air conditioning is huge: 36,000 schools nationwide lack adequate HVAC systems, according to a report from the Center for American Progress, and it’s projected that by 2025 it will cost about $4.4 billion to install or upgrade HVAC and other cooling systems.
Several state and local governments are trying to address the heat problem. In June, the New York State Assembly passed a bill to ban heat pollution. The bill was passed The bill, which is currently awaiting the governor’s signature, would require school officials to take measures such as closing blinds and turning off lights if the temperature in a classroom reaches 82 degrees. Classes would be canceled if it reaches 88 degrees. The bill was introduced California lawmakers, voted last year to require schools to develop heatwave response plans that could include mandating hydration and breaks or shifting break times to cooler times.
Teachers are also being galvanized into action: As president of the Patchogue-Medford Teachers Council, Mr. Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote, more than half of which will go to air conditioning systems for his district’s roughly 500 classrooms.
Girole is running for state representative in Pennsylvania, where a key pillar of his state platform is providing adequate funding to public schools to cover costs like air conditioning. He was recently endorsed by the federal political action committee Climate Cabinet. “One of the reasons climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” he said. “I know that it’s negatively impacting my students.”
