Do you know how hot it is in some SOMSD classrooms?

This is from an actual classroom. And it is representative of many. There are so many rooms in our district without air-conditioning. It's UNBELIEVABLE that kids and teachers have work like this.

It has not been unheard of for the PTAs to purchase window ACs for some of the hottest classrooms.Although I am sur it was pretty uncomfortable, this weather is unusually hot for this time of year, what would you purpose, a heat day, like a snow day, on the first day of school? I think not.

Of course not, that's ridiculous. The point is that not every classroom has a window air conditioner. Some classrooms are cool and comfortable. Others are sweltering hot. It's truly unfortunate for those who spend hours in the classrooms that do not. It's really not fair.

Do you really think that today is an anomaly? Do you realize how many 85+ degree days there are in the school year? And June is a long month.

Viva, I agree with you, perhaps your PTA would fund the purchase of some window ACs. Didn't mean to sound snarky, I worked in an unconditioned school for 25 years, so I know what it can be like, we just had to suck it up. A few of the hotter rooms on the third floor eventually got window units that the PTA purchased. The library finally got some AC and of course the main office had a AC. none in my area until my 24th year there.

Most NJ districts have this problem. Part of the issue is, in my opinion, misplaced priorities.

My district is starting a program to provide every high school student with a laptop (an inexpensive Chromebook) over the next two years. If someone had actually asked the teachers we would have told them that installing air conditioning would have a greater impact. We lose about three weeks of instruction each year because its simply too hot to learn.

I'd love to invite those who refuse to acknowledge climate change to spend 45 minutes in my classroom with 20 teenagers.

^^^^+100

Many of these older schools don't have the wiring installed to add air conditioning. I wish that they did, but there is more to it than just buying a window unit.

FilmCarp said:
Many of these older schools don't have the wiring installed to add air conditioning. I wish that they did, but there is more to it than just buying a window unit.

This too

EBennett said:
Most NJ districts have this problem. Part of the issue is, in my opinion, misplaced priorities.
My district is starting a program to provide every high school student with a laptop (an inexpensive Chromebook) over the next two years. If someone had actually asked the teachers we would have told them that installing air conditioning would have a greater impact. We lose about three weeks of instruction each year because its simply too hot to learn.
I'd love to invite those who refuse to acknowledge climate change to spend 45 minutes in my classroom with 20 teenagers.

Classrooms have always been hot in early and late in the year in schools without air condition. Its not climate change.

However, air conditioning uses electricity which creates green house gases which cause climate change so if you are upset about the climate, you should be petition the schools to get rid of all the inefficient window AC units.

Tom_R said:

EBennett said:
Most NJ districts have this problem. Part of the issue is, in my opinion, misplaced priorities.
My district is starting a program to provide every high school student with a laptop (an inexpensive Chromebook) over the next two years. If someone had actually asked the teachers we would have told them that installing air conditioning would have a greater impact. We lose about three weeks of instruction each year because its simply too hot to learn.
I'd love to invite those who refuse to acknowledge climate change to spend 45 minutes in my classroom with 20 teenagers.

EBBennett: "We lose about three weeks of instruction each year because its simply too hot to learn."

This is true for those classrooms without air-conditioning. Life goes on for the classrooms that are cool and comfortable.

Not fair for those kids (or teachers) without a/c.

Not equitable.

I think we all agree that comfortable classrooms are ideal, but if the physical infrastructure allows cooling in only some rooms I am not going to ask for it to be removed from all of the others out of fairness. Somethings don't work out, and we have to work through them. Last year my child was in a boiling classroom, and this year he isn't. We adapt.

Sure, à very motivated kid will work through it, but really no one should wonder about how school facilities should, could and do figure into student performance, scores, and overall achievement.

viva said:
EBBennett: "We lose about three weeks of instruction each year because its simply too hot to learn."
This is true for those classrooms without air-conditioning. Life goes on for the classrooms that are cool and comfortable.
Not fair for those kids (or teachers) without a/c.
Not equitable.

I do wish we could upgrade the electricity and fix the heating and the cooling of all the school buildings. A few million dollars would do it, I think, but that's a lot of bake sales.

The school buildings in this country built before WW II need to be either razed and rebuilt or gutted and rebuilt, whichever is most cost-effective. Heating and cooling systems are worn out and antiquated. Wiring is not up to the demands of the year 2015.

I wish people would visit Newark Academy, for example, and list the physical infrastructure things at Newark Academy that all students of public schools should not also have.

Most of the key facts have been said here...school PTAs have already bought all the window ACs that the electrical system can bear, from what I've been told. To go further would require very expensive electrical upgrades, at minimum.

When it is particularly hot, changes are sometimes made. I've seen kids moved to alternate rooms that have AC, have seen afterschool rehearsals postponed due to auditorium heat, etc.

While shiny new schools might be lovely, the bond debt it would take to build them would not be. We may need to replace/rebuild our schools one by one, but it will be over many years.

More deeply, however, I'm not sure I want my kids to grow up never having to figure out how to deal with heat, expecting every setting to be cooled for them. When it gets really hot, they wear shorts, take icy water bottles, and even little battery fans.

I'm treating it as one of those exercises in building resilience, and finding coping strategies, since it isn't likely to change. (but I do feel for the teacher stuck with the hot classroom)

susan1014 said:

More deeply, however, I'm not sure I want my kids to grow up never having to figure out how to deal with heat, expecting every setting to be cooled for them. When it gets really hot, they wear shorts, take icy water bottles, and even little battery fans.

I agree with this sentiment but would also observe that it was different when I a teenager. Most of our homes were not air conditioned. We spent more time outside all of the time. A lot of us had summer jobs working outside.

susan1014, excellent post, touching on the realities of life in the real world.

Fwiw, sometimes on really hot days the teachers take their class outside, and do assignments under the shade of a tree.

Somehow, here in 2015, people believe that teachers and their students should endure 6 hours a day under conditions that they themselves would not accept in their own homes or work places. Sure many of us grew up "dealing with it" but this isn't 1960. Septembers are more like Augusts and June is also pretty bad. The most outrageous thing, and I'm not sure if this is true in our schools, is that sometimes main offices and administration offices are like meat lockers while kids and teachers swelter.There was an initiative in NYC a few years back to air condition classrooms, maybe in conjunction with private companies?Can't recall how many classrooms benefitted but quite a few were done. Rewiring and maintence contracts are costly, agreed, bt if this was done in NYC I would be interested to know how such an initiative could be done elsewhere.

annielou said:
Somehow, here in 2015, people believe that teachers and their students should endure 6 hours a day under conditions that they themselves would not accept in their own homes or work places. Sure many of us grew up "dealing with it" but this isn't 1960.

I agree with this sentiment. I don't know that it is actually warmer in any significant way that it was in 1970, but people are much more accustomed to AC at home and at work and spend much more time indoors. When I was a teenager, many of our parents had factory jobs that most likely weren't air-conditioned. Kids spent much more time outdoors. I had summer jobs working outside. In these conditions, sitting in an classroom without AC is less uncomfortable than it is now.

annielou said:
Somehow, here in 2015, people believe that teachers and their students should endure 6 hours a day under conditions that they themselves would not accept in their own homes or work places. Sure many of us grew up "dealing with it" but this isn't 1960. Septembers are more like Augusts and June is also pretty bad. The most outrageous thing, and I'm not sure if this is true in our schools, is that sometimes main offices and administration offices are like meat lockers while kids and teachers swelter.There was an initiative in NYC a few years back to air condition classrooms, maybe in conjunction with private companies?Can't recall how many classrooms benefitted but quite a few were done. Rewiring and maintence contracts are costly, agreed, bt if this was done in NYC I would be interested to know how such an initiative could be done elsewhere.

Agreed.

Why not just go back to 1860 and have one-room school houses? Or 1760, and dispense with compulsory public education altogether?

I don't understand this "back in the day" argument. I went to school "back in the day"-1970s and 1980s--and it was just as horrible to be in a hot classroom as I imagine it is today. (My father has told me stories of having no A/C in the 1940s and 1950s, and it was not something he enjoyed.)

Because of the heat, there was literally no instruction done the last 2-3 weeks of June when I was in school. We would sit around and play cards when I was in HS. Also, we always started school after Labor Day, and back then, if you look at the global warming stats, it was more likely to be cool than it is today. My mother was a teacher, and her happiest day was when she was moved into a brand new annex at her school that had central A/C.

No one is saying that kids should not be exposed to any kind of hot conditions--my house does not have central air, and we only put on the bedroom A/C's at night, and the big living room unit on extremely hot days--but asking kids to sit and LEARN in a hot classroom for six hours a day, for a potentially several weeks at a time, is ridiculous.

tjohn said:

annielou said:
Somehow, here in 2015, people believe that teachers and their students should endure 6 hours a day under conditions that they themselves would not accept in their own homes or work places. Sure many of us grew up "dealing with it" but this isn't 1960.

I agree with this sentiment. I don't know that it is actually warmer in any significant way that it was in 1970, but people are much more accustomed to AC at home and at work and spend much more time indoors. When I was a teenager, many of our parents had factory jobs that most likely weren't air-conditioned. Kids spent much more time outdoors. I had summer jobs working outside. In these conditions, sitting in an classroom without AC is less uncomfortable than it is now.

But there is a which-came-first argument here....do we want to get to the point where most of our kids won't go to summer camp unless the bunks are air-conditioned? Because kids are spending more and more time indoors, we should indoctrinate them to be uncomfortable anyplace without air conditioning?

I may be less heat-tolerant than I was as a kid, due to air-conditioned cars and offices, but I don't necessarily think that is a good thing (and am trying to rebuild my heat tolerance). I don't want my kids too d*** heat-intolerant to walk someplace on a hot summer day, or sleep in a muggy tent, or volunteer in Africa or Haiti, for that matter.

I partially air condition at home, but I also expect kids and adults to dress for the weather (i.e. I air condition for people in shorts and flip-flops, not long pants and heavy socks). Many offices expect people to dress in "business clothing" and air condition to allow it, which is not a standard that I expect schools to follow blindly.

We need to make sure kids and teachers are safe from heat-related illness, but I don't think we need to rush to spend even more energy and money on air conditioning ever great amounts of space to protect ourselves or our children from ever sweating.

========

The reality is that we are not going to fully air-condition our local schools anytime soon, so let's talk about what less expensive options there are to make things more comfortable for them on the most brutally hot days.

(Or we could extend the school year a few more days, add more "snow/heat" days and cancel school on the few hottest days of the year, thus pissing off parents who have to make alternative arrangements...)

I will just conclude my remarks in this thread by saying that the state of our national infrastructure, including public schools is disgraceful for a country as wealthy as ours. We have spend the last 50 years mortgaging our future in a variety of ways - neglect of infrastructure, underfunding pensions, etc. - and the time is coming when we have to pay for these sins.

Among other things, school students should be provided with decent facilities.

Need to raise taxes on the rich, and stop fighting wars.

tjohn said:
I will just conclude my remarks in this thread by saying that the state of our national infrastructure, including public schools is disgraceful for a country as wealthy as ours. We have spend the last 50 years mortgaging our future in a variety of ways - neglect of infrastructure, underfunding pensions, etc. - and the time is coming when we have to pay for these sins.
Among other things, school students should be provided with decent facilities.

Agreed on the same of our national infrastructure...but I'd fix the bridges and tunnels first, and worry about school air conditioning somewhere further down the list.

Hold the main office to the same standard as the classrooms. If they are not able to put AC in each and every classroom then the main office cannot have it either. Same goes for the board of Ed building. They can do the same that we did when I was in school, open the windows, turn off the lights, and fan themselves with folded pieces of notebook paper. Once administration is subjected to the same conditions as teachers and students I think they'll find a way to make sure that all the classrooms have AC.

spontaneous said:
Hold the main office to the same standard as the classrooms. If they are not able to put AC in each and every classroom then the main office cannot have it either. Same goes for the board of Ed building. They can do the same that we did when I was in school, open the windows, turn off the lights, and fan themselves with folded pieces of notebook paper. Once administration is subjected to the same conditions as teachers and students I think they'll find a way to make sure that all the classrooms have AC.

I just can't stay away.

So, are you saying that the administration has some secret slush fund they can use to purchase ACs if they really wanted to?

It really is unfortunate that in most of our schools, many classrooms are too hot during warm weather and too cold in the winter. I don't see where the money would come from to remedy it however.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWuEBcBRkEM

There are some VERY strange arguments being made on this thread...

Personally I prefer fans. I don't need air-conditioning, I would be happy with some ceiling fans that would keep the air moving. We put a/c in our home two years ago and have never had it on for more than a few hours at a time.

I have spent over $100 of my own money on fans for my classroom. The challenge is finding fans that are quiet enough that students can still hear one another.