Angela Girol has taught fourth grade in Pittsburgh for more than two decades. Over the years, she has noticed a change at her school: It is getting warmer.
Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom which, like many on the East Coast, is not air conditioning. If it’s hot, she said, children don’t eat or drink enough water. “They end up in the nurse’s office because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, their stomach hurts — all because of heat and dehydration,” she said.
To cope with the heat, her students are now allowed to keep water on their desks, but that presents its own challenges. “They are constantly filling water bottles, so I have to give them breaks during the day for that. And then everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “I’m losing teaching time.”
The effect that extreme heat has on schools and childcare is beginning to gain the attention of policy makers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a report about the issue. In April, the Federation of American Scientistsa non-profit policy organization.
“The average school building in the US was built almost 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and childcare centers are built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t need access to air conditioning, or at least for a good part of the year. Now we see that it is becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that’s really important, not just for their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.
Last April, the US Environmental Protection Agency released its own report which outlines some of the effects heat has on children. It points out that children have a harder time thermo-regulating and take longer to produce sweat, making them more vulnerable than adults to heat exhaustion and heat illness.
Children don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and may need an adult to remind them to drink water or not play outside. Kevin Toolan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said constantly monitoring heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those kids don’t know how to handle it.”
To keep the classroom cool, he will turn off the lights, but children fall asleep. “They’re lethargic,” he said.
To protect children, schools canceled classes because temperatures got too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more children who are absent from school, especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. One study from 2020 tracked the scores of students from non-AC schools who took the PSAT exam at least twice. It found that increases in the average outdoor temperature corresponded with students making smaller gains on their remeasurements.
Both Toolan and Girol said cooling options such as keeping doors and windows open to promote cross-ventilation are gone, thanks to the post-9/11 cuts in school security — and exacerbated by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheated classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” Toolan said. “At 100 degrees it’s very uncomfortable. Your clothes are stuck to you.”
The Center for American Progress report joins a call by other advocacy groups to create federal guidance that schools and child care centers can adopt “to ensure that children are not forced to learn, play and exercise in dangerously hot conditions.” Schneider said. Some states already have standards in place, but they vary. In California, child care facilities are required to maintain temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, such as Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activities on high heat days. Schneider says federal guidance will help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.
In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed on a letter made a similar request from the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect children. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; to encourage states to direct more resources to provide air conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information about heat hazards.
“We know that school infrastructure is overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should implement, it’s going to be a bit of a Wild West of actions,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.
A long-term solution is the upgrading of school infrastructure, but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide lack adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost about $4.4 billion.
Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat problem. In June, the New York State Legislature passed a bill now await the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures such as closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be cancelled. A bill submitted last year and currently before California’s state assembly would require schools to create extreme heat action plans that could include mandating hydration and rest breaks or moving recess to cooler parts of the day.
Some teachers were encouraged to take action as well. As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote. More than half will go toward HVAC systems for about 500 classrooms in his district.
And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a key plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools to pay for things like air conditioning. She was recently endorsed by the Climate Cabinet, a federal political action committee. “Part of the reason climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” she said. “I see how it affects my students negatively.”
