The last year that I taught kids in public school was in a southern state. My school was not air conditioned. When the temperature hit the upper 80s by early May, my principal brought huge fans into the classroom, but the kids and I were still melting as we struggled to hear one another over the noise. The last six weeks of that year were a hot and sticky futile struggle to get much of anything done.
Decades of climate change later, more communities are experiencing stretches of extreme heat. Athletes on practice fields, marching bands rehearsing their formations, and even children at recess are at growing risk of heat illness and even death. Though data is incomplete, thousands of students have experienced heat-related illness and dozens of teenagers have died from the effects of excessive heat in recent years.
As with so much else, schools' capacity to prevent and respond to these new health threats depend on funding, and thus are grossly unequal. Some schools hire specialized athletic trainers and install large ice baths in special recovery rooms to quickly treat overheated students; in other schools, ill students are sent inside to sit in makeshift plastic tubs of ice water or to rest on cafeteria tables. States are setting new health standards for emergency equipment and staff training, but in many schools, these standards are yet another unfunded mandate.
There are so many dimensions to educational inequality. Now, unequal funding can mean that student in well-resourced schools are buffered from the worst effects of the extreme heat of climate change while students in schools that have long been underfunded risk serious illness or even death when participating in routine student activities.
It seems so basic that all schools should be keeping students safe. It seems so basic that all kids should attend equally-funded schools.
