No AC in schools – not OK

This summer, the Boston City Council adopted a $1.177 billion budget for Boston Public Schools, the largest ever.

And not a dime is going to air condition the 92 public schools that go without. Considering the temperature spikes we’ve had this month alone, AC can no longer be considered a luxury.

How bad is it? As the Herald’s Alexi Cohan reported, a student fainted from the heat last week.

Jose Valenzuela, a history teacher at Boston Latin Academy, said his classroom temperature hovered over 80 degrees every day last week. One student didn’t fare well in the heat.

“She asked to sit down because she didn’t feel well (and she looked unwell). She lost her balance, and I was fortunate to catch her,” said Valenzuela via email. He said he rushed to get the student water and the school’s nurses were quick to respond.

“According to the student’s doctor, the incident was heat-related,” said Valenzuela, who described the heat as “sweltering” and “insufferable.”

If office conditions are such that employees suffer from sweltering heat, they can complain to OSHA. But if you’re a student or teacher in a Boston Public School, you sweat it out.

The new BPS budget includes new school-based investments to address opportunity gaps, which is laudable. But why kneecap efforts to boost educational opportunities by not making the environment conducive to learning?

Last year, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted a study of students living in air-conditioned dorms during a heat wave and a group living in dorms without AC. The study found the students without AC during the heat performed worse on a series of cognitive tests.

But BPS students don’t need a study to tell them it can be too hot to learn.

Sixteen-year-old Simon Chernow, one of Valenzuela’s students, said he was distracted from his schoolwork and some of his friends felt sick. “I’ve had a couple friends who had to go to the nurse during class from feeling overheated and feeling really tired.”

At least the fiscal 2020 budget funds a nurse in every school.

Michael Maguire, a high school Latin teacher at Boston Latin Academy, has been tracking the temperature in his classroom using a thermometer.

On Monday, it was 90.5 degrees. Maguire described his classroom as a “pizza oven.”

“It’s not really teaching, learning, studying — it’s just surviving,” said Maguire.

“You want to improve kids’ test scores? You want to close the achievement gap? Taking a test in a comfortable environment can go a long way,” said Maguire, noting that many important exams take place at the end of the school year, when the temperatures are spiking.

And it’s not likely to get better. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the number of days above 90 degrees in Massachusetts has been consistently above average since the early 1990s, with the highest number since 1950 (11.5 days per year) occurring during the most recent 5-year period of 2010 to 2014.

When the Boston School Committee passed its initial fiscal 2020 budget earlier this year, Mayor Marty Walsh said “Through this budget, we continue to increase funding for individual schools and students to support the enrichment of their academics.”

Making school environments conducive to learning by ameliorating stifling temperatures is “supporting the enrichment of their academics.”

Don’t wait for a wave of fainting students.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2mb3FjL