In her fifth grade class in a Los Angeles school, on a day when outdoor temperatures reached 116 degrees, the heat gave Lilian Chin a headache. The air conditioner in her classroom was broken. Her fingers felt numb and she vomited in class, according to her mother. The nurse wasn’t available, so she was sent back to her hot classroom. 

By the time the school day was over and Lilian made it to her mother’s air conditioned car, she was exhausted and red-faced. At home, she vomited again and got a leg cramp. Veronica Chin rushed her 11-year-old daughter to an emergency room, where she was diagnosed with heat exhaustion — a serious condition that leads to a life-threatening heat stroke if not treated promptly. 

When Chin called the school, Haskell Elementary STEAM Magnet, to complain about the broken air conditioning, she received an email that a repair ticket had been created. The San Fernando Valley school, in the Los Angeles Unified School District, had marked the repair a “low priority.”  (School officials did not respond to CalMatters’ questions when a reporter called and visited the campus.)

Chin was furious. “I’m trusting them with my children,” she said. “I’m thinking that my children are in a safe space, when they’re not.”  

, California schools are unprepared to protect their students from extreme heat. Some schools don’t have air conditioning at all, because they were built before hotter climates made it a necessity. Others have old systems pushed to their limits, with school districts struggling to keep up with repairs or replacements with limited staff and funding. 

For instance, in Long Beach — which reached a degrees last month — all or most buildings in 13 public schools with about 14,000 students have no air conditioning systems. In Oakland, as many as 2,000 classrooms don’t have them. And in Fresno, officials have been overwhelmed with more than 5,000 calls for air conditioning repairs in the past 12 months.

Between 15 and 20% of California’s kindergarten through 12th grade public schools “have , and as many as another 10% of schools need major repair or replacement for their systems to function adequately,” UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers wrote in a report last year.  Some advocates say that is likely an underestimate.  

School officials say they would need tens of billions of dollars to install and repair air conditioning. Many of the worst problems are in hot, inland school districts that serve low-income communities of color, where there are fewer financial resources to replace or repair them.

“If it’s too hot, just like if you’re too hungry, it’s almost impossible to learn, so the impact on students and teachers is great,” said Paul Idsvoog, the Fresno Unified School District’s chief operations officer. “If you have multiple systems that are 20 years old, sooner or later you’re not going to be able to keep up with the tide.”

Voters in November will be asked to approve a  to fund repairs and upgrades of buildings at K-12 schools and community colleges, including air conditioning systems.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last month vetoed  for climate-resilient schools, including an assessment of when air conditioning systems were last modernized. State officials currently do not collect data on air conditioning in schools.

Nationally  need to update or replace their heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems in at least half of their schools, according to a federal study. 

In California, the problems are common statewide, jeopardizing children and teachers in inland as well as coastal communities.

“It’s just a hot mess,” said Aaron Kahlenberg, a teacher at Los Angeles Unified’s John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills. â€śWhen it was cool out, it worked, and when it got hot, it didn’t work. It got to be very frustrating.” 

Absences rise and learning drops on hot days

Hot classrooms lead to more student and teacher and absences, and studies show that they reduce children’s ability to learn.

On a recent day in Oakland when outdoor temperatures reached 88 degrees, 8th-grader Juliette Sanchez felt sticky and hot in a stuffy room at Melrose Leadership Academy. 

“For me it’s a lot harder to focus on what I’m doing,” Sanchez said. “Like, right now I’m sticking to the table. It’s uncomfortable to write. My arm is sticky and I’m just hot.”

Student performance on exams declines by up to 14% on hot days, according to a 2018  in New York City. According to another study, an increase in the average temperature of 1 degree leads to , measured by changes in test scores. 

For Black and brown students, the learning losses are even greater, said V. Kelly Turner, a heat expert at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs who has researched hot schools. 

“They’re already perhaps in schools that don’t have enough teachers or enough supplies, and then put on top of that, they’re going to hot homes,” she said. “Maybe they don’t have any rights to install air conditioning systems. Maybe they live in mobile homes and have even fewer rights.”

A state program, , helps public schools improve air conditioning and water systems. Between 2021 and 2023, more than 3,800 schools were  $421 million to assess their systems, with 11 undertaking major repairs or replacements. 

However, in August, state legislators considered eliminating the program . Although the bill failed, the program has been closed to new applications since July. More than a dozen school districts have  to reopen applications. 

The attempt to gut the program worries school and environmental advocates, who say the state is failing to prioritize schools as climate change raises temperatures.

“For many schools, cooling is no longer just a nicety, but a necessity,” Jonathan Klein, head of UndauntedK12, an organization that supports schools transitioning to zero emissions to reduce greenhouse gasses, said in a statement. “Students and staff deserve safe, healthy, resilient school campuses that support teaching and learning amidst extreme weather.” 

Fixing air conditioners: $9 billion in LA schools alone

Most students return to school in mid-August or early September, when much of the state — particularly in the Los Angeles region — suffers its most intense heat waves. Some schools also operate year-round.

In the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, classroom temperatures reached into the mid 90s during an early September heat wave.

Teachers at several schools there told CalMatters that their requests for air conditioning repairs went unanswered or were slow to come. Portable units installed in classrooms were insufficient to keep temperatures comfortable enough for students to learn. Students were visibly lethargic from the heat. Some parents opted to keep their children home.

Kahlenberg, who teaches high school architecture, said he had asked for the air conditioning in his classroom to be repaired for weeks. By the time a heat wave hit in early September, it still wasn’t fixed. His classroom temperature reached 95 degrees.

“Everybody was tired,” Kahlenberg said. “I told them if they needed to take a break, that if they didn’t want to work, it was totally acceptable. I would just extend the project. But it just shouldn’t have to be like that.” 

Kahlenberg said teachers told him about 20 other classrooms at his school also didn’t have working air conditioning during that heat wave. 

A physical education teacher in another Los Angeles school said she spent weeks before the September heat wave trying to flag air conditioning problems in her office.  (The teacher wished to remain anonymous out of fear she would be disciplined for discussing the issue with CalMatters.)

Then, when the extreme heat came and the gymnasium temperature was too hot for the students, she and others informed the school. She said the school responded on the last day of the heat wave that students could sit outside in shade if they needed to. The suggestion dumbfounded her: Why would she have her students sit outside, where it was even hotter than in the gym?  

All schools in Los Angeles Unified have air conditioners. But Krisztina Tokes, the district’s chief facilities executive, said 50,000 faulty or aged units and pieces of equipment need to be replaced in the district’s more than 1,000 schools.

LA Unified, the largest school district in the state, has invested $1 billion to upgrade heating, ventilation and cooling systems in the last two decades, including $287 million for 20 projects that are currently under construction or being designed.

Tokes said officials work to keep students safe by following protocols when air conditioning breaks down, such as installing portable units or moving students to spare, air conditioned spaces. Outside, schools place portable misting fans and commercial-grade pop-up tents for shade. 

School days were cut short in schools where district officials felt they couldn’t provide a safe learning environment. Air conditioning systems are also checked at the start of summer and again just before classes start. Teachers and staff are trained to identify and respond to signs of heat related illness, a district spokesperson said.

“Under no circumstance should there be a child or parent thinking their health isn’t being addressed,” Tokes said. “There were conditions that were beyond the district’s control.” 

Replacing all air conditioners in the district’s schools would cost at least $9 billion, according to Amanda Wherritt, Los Angeles Unified’s deputy chief of staff.

“It’s really about financial resources,” Tokes said. “We do not receive enough money from the state to either repair or replace our systems.” 

Even coastal schools are sweltering 

While many classrooms throughout the state have air conditioning, those that don’t are often in coastal areas. Many of these schools were built in the 1950s or 60s, before the warming effects of climate change had worsened heat waves.

In Long Beach less than a decade ago, 51 out of 84 schools didn’t have air conditioning in all classrooms. Since then, a has helped the school district upgrade many of them. 

But 13 schools, serving about a quarter of the district’s students, still for at least another three years. One school, Polytechnic High School, which has about 4,000 students, will undergo major renovations, including adding air conditioning, that won’t be complete until 2028, said Alan Reising, Long Beach Unified School District’s facilities and operations assistant superintendent. In the meantime, officials installed portable air conditioners and outdoor shade structures in many of the schools, Reising said. 

Some inland Long Beach neighborhoods experience five high-heat days a year when temperatures exceed 97 degrees.

“Arguably, we haven’t needed it,” Reising said. But now, he said, “with the obvious signs of climate change, we have more hot days we have to deal with every year. There’s no thought that it’s going to get better in the future, so the need for air conditioning now has become very obvious.” 

In the San Diego Unified School District, all 175 schools now have air conditioning. The district spent $460 million between 2013 and 2019 to install systems in the 118 schools that didn’t have them. 

While many of the systems are newer as a result, they’re still with students saying some classrooms reached around 100 degrees in September. Some San Diego neighborhoods have four high-heat days a year that exceed 91 degrees. 

“We were definitely experiencing some air conditioning issues throughout the district. We are doing our best to respond to all repair requests as quickly as possible,” said Samer Naji, a district spokesperson.

In the Oakland Unified School District, about 2,000 classrooms in 77 schools have no air conditioners. In late September, outdoor temperatures reached 88 degrees; some Oakland neighborhoods have seven days a year that exceed 89 degrees.

Equipping those schools with air conditioning would be an expensive and complicated task that would cost at least $400 million, said Preston Thomas, Oakland Unified School District’s chief systems and services officer. 

At Melrose Learning Academy in Oakland, students said the heat makes it hard to focus. Lyra Modersbach, an eighth grader who is a member of an environmental club at the school, said she has noticed temperatures getting hotter year after year. When she’s home, she can wear cool clothes and rest to beat the heat, but she can’t do that at school. 

Modersbach said her school has a few portable air conditioners but if too many are on at once, they shut off. 

The heat “is very distracting,” she  said. “I’ve noticed having a harder time getting my work done or feeling frustrated.”

As members of the Youth Versus Apocalypse environmental club, Modersbach and Juliette Sanchez and invest in an energy-efficient heat pump that will provide air conditioning. The district will use funds from a 2020 $735 million bond measure to  at their school next year.  

Inland schools have little money to invest

While many inland schools are fully air conditioned, some don’t have air conditioning in their gymnasiums, cafeterias and multi-purpose rooms.

Many inland school districts, where 100-degree days are common, have far fewer financial resources than wealthier coastal districts, said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities + Schools. 

“Most of the spending on facility upgrades is based on local bond measures, which is based on your ability to levy property taxes,” she said. “So districts that have lower levels of property values per student are able to raise less money to upgrade their facilities.” 

School districts in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire are among those that have invested less money because of lower property values and a smaller voter base to tap into, Hinkley said. 

“There’s no environmental justice or climate equity imperative. That would take an active regulation to change how bond disbursements are made in the state,” said UCLA’s Turner. “The state could go a long way by investing in better technical assistance to communities to apply for these funds and focusing on priority schools.”  

Fresno Unified School District, where 90% of students are on free or reduced lunch plans, recently invested $60 million in federal funds to replace or install air conditioning systems in some of its gyms, cafeterias and multi-purpose rooms, said Alex Belanger, chief executive over the district’s operations. 

But the district needs about $500 million to improve its heating and ventilation systems, Belanger said. 

Belanger said during heat waves, it’sto keep students cool. Staff work weekends and nights to repair air conditioning systems and the school provides temporary chillers and portable air conditioning if systems break down. 

Idsvoog said the Fresno school district would like to invest in energy efficient strategies such as building well-insulated schools with green space and oriented in a way that won’t absorb heat. But there’s simply no money to do so. 

“The reality is it’s not going to get any cooler and resources will always be a challenge for any school district,” Idsvoog said. “Any assistance, grants or state funding that can support those efforts is more than welcome.”

Owen Driscoll, a 17-year-old senior at Rufus King International High School in Milwaukee, was skeptical about starting school after Labor Day this year, three weeks later than before. But he is beginning to see the advantages.

“Last year when we were on the old schedule, we had a few heat days [off in August] because it was so unbearable,” he said, noting that few classrooms are air-conditioned. That made it hard to get into the rhythm of school, he said.

By delaying the start date and extending the school year into June, heat days are more likely at the end of the year, Driscoll acknowledged. But by then, he said, students are ready to be done and appreciate the unscheduled time off.

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Higher summer temperatures, driven by climate change, are pushing more school districts around the country to start the school year later. It’s contrary to a decades-long trend toward moving up start dates. In addition to the change at some schools in Milwaukee, school officials in Philadelphia and in Billings, Montana, also have cited heat as a reason to push back their start dates.

“We see examples all over the country,” said Karen White, deputy executive director of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country.

“I think it’s only gotten worse,” White said. “We are at a point in time [in the school year when] parents and educators and students should be excited. It’s difficult when you are sending your kid to a classroom that’s more like a hot yoga class.”

White said climate change has led some teachers to demand air conditioning in collective bargaining. She pointed to an in Columbus, Ohio, that called for climate-controlled classrooms by the 2025-26 school year.

In Philadelphia, district spokesperson Christina Clark said that beginning school after Labor Day will minimize the number of heat-related school closures, “which exacerbate inequities between schools that have air conditioning and those that do not.”

“Hot temperatures during the first few days of school leads to headaches, lack of attention and general frustration,” Clark wrote in an email to Stateline.

In Billings, Montana, Superintendent Erwin Garcia noted that one of the district’s oldest high schools has no air conditioning and the other has it in only half the building.

“I noticed classrooms can be 90 degrees, 95 degrees, almost 100 degrees. And our students and teachers have to go through that process for two to three weeks,” Garcia last December, when the district was discussing changes. The school board voted to push back this year’s start date to Sept. 3. The 2023-24 school year began on Aug. 22.

He estimated that fully air-conditioning the two oldest high schools would cost $24 million — and that the district would have to ask taxpayers for the money, according to KTVQ.

A lawmaker in Texas, where most schools started the week of Aug. 12, plans to file a bill in the next legislative session to delay school openings as a way to reduce stress on the state’s power grid.

“With 1,100 new residents daily and an ever-expanding economy, opening schools before Labor Day is an awfully wasteful stress on our power grid. Cooling thousands of buildings — often the largest buildings in a community — during the hottest months of the year makes no sense,” Texas Republican state Rep. Jared Patterson .

“Schools should be completely closed during July & August, saving taxpayer dollars on cooling expenses and our grid at the same time,” he wrote last month.

In general, schools in the Northeast start later, schools in the Deep South, earlier. In places that are hot for much of the year, such as Arizona, Florida and Texas, the heat is less of a concern because nearly all schools are fully air conditioned. In the six New England states, however, almost no students go back before the end of August, while in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, about three-quarters of students don’t return until after Labor Day, according to a .

Contrary to popular belief, the school calendar has little to do with the agrarian economy, . If it did, spring planting and fall harvesting seasons would be days off school for farm kids.

What is true is that in recent years, historically hot summers have forced many schools — no matter when their start dates — to temporarily close. Last month, for example, some schools in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin all closed or dismissed students early because of excessive heat.

And last year, schools in nine states — Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — during the first week of September either closed or let kids out before scheduled dismissal, according to a by CBS News.

Climate change will “probably hasten a push back to a September start in places that have somewhat temperate Junes,” said Joshua Graff Zivin, an economist and director of the Cowhey Center on Global Transformation at the University of California San Diego.

Zivin said more schools should invest in air conditioning, but even with it, a hot commute to school or home temperatures too high to get a good night’s sleep affect students’ performance and might lead to calls for later school start dates.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2020 found 41% of school districts across the country need to update or replace heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning  systems in at least half of their schools, amounting to about 36,000 schools.

The federal agency didn’t measure how many schools have no air conditioning at all, according to Jackie Nowicki, a director in GAO’s team that focuses on education.

In Milwaukee, Adria Maddaleni, chief human resources officer for the Milwaukee Public Schools, said the later start was partially the result of a parent survey. Only about a quarter of classrooms in the district have air conditioning.

“I thank the Lord we did not have early start this session,” Maddaleni said in an interview, “and we didn’t have to worry about canceling school.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

Angela Girol has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for over two decades. Over the years she’s noticed a change at her school: It’s getting hotter.

Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom which, , isn’t air-conditioned. When it’s hot, she said, kids 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’re constantly filling up 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 instruction time.”

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The effect extreme heat is having on schools and child care is starting to get the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, on the issue. In April, so did the , a nonprofit policy organization.

“The average school building in the U.S. was built nearly 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and child care centers were built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t require access to air-conditioning, or at least for a good portion of the year. Now we’re seeing that becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that is really important not just to their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.

Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own detailing some of the effects heat has on kids. It notes 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.

Kids don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and might 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 having to constantly monitor heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those children don’t know how to handle it.”

To keep the classroom cool, he’ll turn the lights off, but kids fall asleep. “They are lethargic,” he said.

To protect kids, because temperatures have gotten too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more , especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. tracked the scores of students from schools without air-conditioning 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 retakes.

Both Toolan and Girol said that cooling options like keeping doors and windows open to promote cross ventilation are gone, thanks to the clampdowns in school security after 9/11 — and worsened by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheating classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” said Toolan. “At 100 degrees, it is 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 could 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 keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, like Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on high-heat days. Schneider says federal guidance would help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.

In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed making a similar request of the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect kids. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; encouraging states to direct more resources to providing air-conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information on heat hazards.

“We know that school infrastructure is being overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should be implementing, it’s going to be a little bit of the Wild West of actions being taken,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.

A longer term solution is upgrading school infrastructure but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide don’t have adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost around $4.4 billion.

Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat issue. In June, the New York State Legislature now awaiting the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures like closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be canceled. A 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 have been galvanized to take action, too. 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. Over half will go to HVAC systems for some 500 classrooms in his district.

And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a main plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools in order 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’s negatively affecting my students.”

Originally published by

PROVIDENCE — With a large black SUV with AC on full blast standing by for when heat got too oppressive, five school food service workers were working underneath a blue tarp at the Bucklin Kitchen on Daboll Street when Claudia Morales approached.

Morales was there to pick up three boxed lunches for two of her children — a high school junior and senior — and one grandchild — a kindergartner, Thursday because the Providence Public School District (PPSD) closed 19 of its 37 schools due to excessive heat. Providence joined 19 other local education agencies that either closed or dismissed classes early due to the weather.

“At home, I wasn’t prepared,” she said when asked why she came to the food site. “One of my kids goes to Classical and today was supposed to be her first day. She hasn’t even started yet.”

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“I didn’t mind the decision, I think [officials] made the right call,” she continued. “I think maybe they’ll do it again tomorrow.”

PPSD announced schools would be closed Thursday on Wednesday night due to concerns around the health and safety of students and staff.

“The Providence Public School District (PPSD) is committed to the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and families,” said PPSD Public Information Officer Jay Wegimont in a statement Wednesday night. “We understand the challenges that extreme heat conditions can bring, and we appreciate families’ cooperation and understanding.”

The district “will continue to monitor the weather,” according to its announcement. The National Weather Service has issued through 8 p.m. Friday, noting heat index values — what the temperature feels like when high humidity combines with high temperatures — of up to 98.

Pawtucket announced via Twitter Wednesday night that all schools would be closed Thursday.

“Due to the extreme heat forecast tomorrow, there will be no school Thursday, September 7, 2023,” a Tweet from the Pawtucket School District said. “12 Month employees to report to work. Employees, any questions contact your immediate supervisor.”

Meteorologist Bryce Wilson at the National Weather Service in Norton, Massachusetts, said temperatures in Providence could hit the mid-90s Thursday, but that’s not where the real danger lies.

“The big issue is it’s not just going to be hot,” he said. “It’s going to be humid. We have dew points in the mid-70s.”

“When you have moisture in the air you can’t sweat and cool off,” he said. “That’s why it’s more dangerous than a dry heat.”

Ashley Cullinane, a spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Department of Education, said the weather has led to cancellations regionally.

“There have been reports of the heat impacting districts across New England, so it’s important to note that this issue impacts schools beyond Providence,” Cullinane said in an email, “many of which do not have properly electrical capacity to house cooling units and systems.”

Closures and early dismissals across R.I.

Officials with the Rhode Island Department of Education listed the 19 other local education agencies which closed schools or ended classes early due to the heat and humidity. The list included: Blessed Sacrament School in Providence, LaSalle Academy in Providence, all schools in Pawtucket, the Met East Bay School in Newport, William M. Davies Career and Technical High School in Lincoln, and the Rhode Island Transition Academy at Roger Williams University.

Officials dismissed students early in: Barrington, Burrillville, Cranston, Coventry, Cumberland, East Greenwich, East Providence, Johnston, Scituate, Smithfield, West Warwick, and Woonsocket.

“I have visited several of our schools and have found that classrooms are certainly warm and buildings with classrooms on second floors are even warmer in temperature,” Cumberland Superintendent Philip D. Thornton said in a message to families sent Wednesday night. “To accommodate for the warm weather, administrators and teachers are making adjustments to the physical education classes, recess schedule and providing alternative teaching areas for students as needed.”

“Water is easily accessible to everyone. However, even with these adjustments, the weather forecast for Thursday calls for even warmer temperatures.”

Age of schools a factor in capital

It’s no secret that school buildings in Providence tend to be old and often lack air conditioning, . According to commissioned by PPSD, the average age of schools in Providence is about 70 years old.

“We know our facilities are old/outdated,” said Maribeth Calabro, president of the Providence Teachers Union, in a text message. “We also know how much money is required to upgrade, update and in some cases rebuild 21st century schools.”

She said that a $235 million bond approved in November by voters would provide some of the necessary upgrades and “make it so we don’t have to close 19 schools.” According to there are over $900 million worth of infrastructure deficiencies in Providence schools.

Given current conditions though, Calabro said the decision to call off school Thursday was the right one.

“State and District leadership made the difficult but appropriate decision to close schools without air conditioning,” she said. “Due to the excessive heat, classrooms were unbearably hot and created unhealthy situations for students and staff.”

Chanda Womack, the executive director of the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education, was more blunt in her assessment.

“It’s hot and the schools don’t have AC,” Womack said via text. “[PPSD] Buildings are trash. It’s simple.”

Providence Public Schools District School Committee Member Ty’Relle Stephens said that he visited several schools Wednesday.

“I was definitely sweating in some of the schools I visited yesterday,” he said. “I definitely believe that a lot of our schools need to be upgraded and do not have air conditioning.”

For Morales though, the fact that so many schools have no air conditioning makes her question district leaders’ priorities.

“They’re not paying attention to the children,” she said.

PPSD has been working on improvising buildings, promising to invest more than $50 million into facility repairs and improvements by 2030. Slightly more than 7%, about $31 million, of the department’s fiscal year 2024 budget is set to go toward school building maintenance costs.

Cullinane said that Providence schools also that aims to update the technology and functionality of school structures.

“After opening just one new school in the last 14 years, Providence is slated to open three new and like-new schools this year under the intervention,” she said. “Projects are expected to receive an estimated 91% reimbursement by the State.”

On top of the list for improvements is , which has around $151 million in deficiencies according to the Downes Report. The school may face demolition, refurbishment, or a combination of the two by 2025. Costs on that project — starting at $120 million — will be covered with money from the $235 million bond.

For Morales though, she said this is a learning opportunity, this time not so much for the students.

“I hope PPSD learns from it,” she said. “And maybe they’ll fix the ACs.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .