Photo of portable air conditioner by Emilian Robert Vicol licensed under CC BY 2.0
If you heard students and teachers complaining about the heat earlier this year…they’ve had good reason. Although winter has arrived in most of the country, providing a respite from the heat, the nation endured the hottest year on record. In October alone, the hottest temperatures in 136 years were recorded. Students and teachers in hot, non-air conditioned classrooms have suffered.
Temperature increases and the lack of air conditioning in public schools are creating significant and very costly problems. Student health issues, forced early school dismissals, increased absenteeism and a lack of overall productivity have resulted from overheated rooms. Data confirms that concentration and cognitive abilities decline substantially after a room reaches 77 degrees. Without air conditioning, it has been difficult to keep temperatures at preferred levels in classrooms.
San Diego is receiving the most attention for its air conditioning struggles. Some of the district’s classrooms reached over 90 degrees at times during the summer. Teachers were forced to adjust teaching strategies after students began passing out from the heat. It became common for teachers to regularly spritz students with cool water during the hottest times of the day.
In the Baltimore School System in Maryland, 48 schools, or about 30 percent of the district, lack air conditioning. In Los Angeles, only about 40 percent of the schools within Long Beach Unified School District are air conditioned.
Most buildings in the Gateway School District in Pittsburgh don’t have air conditioning, and administrators purchased window air conditioning units after receiving complaints of headaches and increases in heat-related issues. Three elementary schools and one middle school were put on a “cooling rotation program,” where students were rotated in and out of air-cooled rooms. Other schools set up numerous water stations to ensure students and staff members stayed hydrated.
The Glastonbury school district in Connecticut struggled with the lack of air conditioning in classrooms and although the school board wanted to do something, the estimated cost of installing air cooling systems was projected to cost $1.7 million for each of the elementary schools.
School officials in the San Diego Unified School District plan to provide three air conditioning units for each school. That will provide two cool rooms per school. Even with a rotation system in place, teachers say they can’t be as effective as they would be in a more tolerable environment. The school district is currently moving forward with a $206 million plan to expand air conditioning to every school.
The Department of Energy’s EnergySmart Schools reports that K-12 schools already spend more than $8 billion annually on energy. It is the second highest operating expenditure after personnel costs. And, air conditioning classrooms will increase that amount significantly.
Trying to find a silver lining, some say that that the air conditioning crisis will incentivize elected officials to reward schools that design alternative energy solutions to lower building temperatures without increasing power costs. The air conditioning expansion project approved in San Diego calls for $40 million in solar panels, but electricity costs will drop dramatically.
Cooler temperatures have recently arrived, but when the hot summer months return, private-sector firms with air conditioning solutions and services will find a red-hot market in public school classrooms.
To learn more about opportunities with public education and other government programs, contact SPI‘s team of procurement experts and subscribe to our newsletters.