First we set education back YEARS because of insane Covid policies which prevented kids from going to school.
So now we are going to shut schools down because of another issue that has nothing at all to do with putting kids first:
Climate!
It's a little warmer this summer than normal; therefore, schools are a danger to students.
At least up north where they don't have air conditioning.
In the South where it's ALWAYS hot, we've had A/C for decades.
As kids return to school across the country, fall-like temperatures haven't returned to classrooms.
Instead, students from more than 100 Philadelphia schools were sent home early on the second and third day of school because of the district's extreme heat protocol and the 90-degree temperatures both inside and outside school buildings. It's a major problem, especially when roughly 100 Philly schools have no air conditioning.
"About 40% of the schools in the United States are thought to have air conditioning," said Paul Chinowsky, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder and contributor to the report, "Hotter Days, Higher Costs: The Cooling Crisis in America's Classrooms."
That number is absolutely shocking.
As someone who has lived exclusively in the South, I cannot even imagine a school building without A/C. It was invented 100 years ago for goodness sake! Why are these places neglecting one of the greatest inventions of all time?
Maybe, just maybe, they should have used some of the THOUSANDS in Covid funds on installing cooling systems instead of woke curriculum.
Chinowsky said there's no official database, or mandate for air conditioning in schools, and climate change is turning hot classrooms into a public health issue.
"Climate change is just going to get worse and our schools are going to suffer," he added.
OR, hear me out, ENTER THE 20TH CENTURY AND GET CENTRAL COOLING FOR YOUR BUILDINGS!
Fire your school's "diversity officer" and use that salary to pay for the A/C.
This isn't complicated.
And, of course, the weather is racist.
Hotter temperatures have detrimental effects for learning, according to research published in 2020 that showed how test scores suffered when students took exams in hot classrooms. Hot school days disproportionately impact minority students, the research found.
"Suppose we have a 2-degree Fahrenheit hotter than average school year, that appears to reduce the rate of learning on average by around 2%," co-author Dr. Jisung Park said. "It's a lot larger, roughly three times larger for underrepresented minorities and low-income students."
The money is there! Use it wisely! This isn't complicated.
We all know what's really going on here.
But it's hot in 2022 so now it's climate change and global warming and we may have to shut down schools until this is all figured out.
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