蜜桃影视

Last week, Hawaii completed its $100 million mission to cool down 1,000 public school classrooms. It鈥檚 part of the state鈥檚 to bring air conditioning to the warm islands, where fewer than half the classrooms have A/C.

The heat abatement program, as it鈥檚 called, is outfitting schools with different cooling tools, depending on what their building can support. These include solar-powered A/C, insulation, vents to remove hot air, ceiling fans, and skylights that brighten, but don鈥檛 heat up, a classroom.

鈥淭he learning environment is way, much more comfortable,鈥� Nanakuli High School senior class president Talafaaiva Ealim . 鈥淏efore, we would work in the heat, and we鈥檇 get all sweaty and sticky. It鈥檚 a whole lot easier for the teachers to teach now that students are paying more attention.鈥�

An additional 300 classrooms will receive air conditioning by the end of September, using money left over from the Legislature鈥檚 $100 million appropriation. Hawaii鈥檚 Department of Education estimated that if every school in the state were to get A/C, it could cost as much as $1.7 billion.

(蜜桃影视: Exclusive: Too Hot to Learn: Records Show Nearly a Dozen of the Biggest School Districts Lack Air Conditioning)

Even with the 1,000 newly outfitted rooms, Hawaii schools still lag behind other comparably large districts when it comes to cool classrooms. A public records request by 蜜桃影视 found that while most of the 50 largest districts in the nation equip all their schools with air conditioning units, 11 districts don鈥檛 have enough for many of their classrooms.

It鈥檚 hard to keep students鈥� attention and manage behavior when classrooms get overheated, teachers told 蜜桃影视. Some schools without air conditioning have let students or when temperatures have gotten too high. Additionally, has found that test scores can drop when students are stuck in the heat.

鈥淭aking an exam on a 90 [degree] day relative to a 72 [degree] day results in a reduction in exam performance that is equivalent to a quarter of the black-white [student] achievement gap,鈥� the study says.

But as climate change drives temperatures, districts are still trying to invest in A/C. New York City, for example, spends millions to cool its classrooms, and about 11,000 still don鈥檛 have A/C units. By 2022, the $29 million to make these units ubiquitous across schools.

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.