This opinion column about climate and design was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Tempers get short. Test scores suffer. On the worst days, schools close, and students lose days of learning while parents’ schedules are disrupted.
Yorkwood Elementary in Baltimore, before it finally got air conditioning last year, was subject to closure by the district on any day the forecast hit 90 degrees by 10 a.m. And the number of those days has been rising over time.
“I remember one year we literally had seven [closure] days before we were able to have a full week of school because of the heat,” said Tonya Redd, the principal.
July 2023 was the world’s hottest month on record. And America’s schools weren’t built for this. According to a 2021 study by the Center for Climate Integrity, more than 13,700 public schools that did not need cooling systems in 1970 have in..
- Sunday, September 8, 2024