Elaine S. Povich | (TNS) Stateline.org
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.
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 agreement 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 told local station KTVQ 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.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
