Air conditioning
Several years ago round these parts (Kansas and Missouri), early-release heat schedules were a routine occurrence in August and sometimes into September. As school calendars crept more and more into the dog days of summer, classrooms often were unbearably hot. More widespread installation of air conditioning has eliminated that problem in some districts, but for those without climate control, the question remains: Is it worth installing air conditioning throughout all school facilities, or is cost of such upgrades too much to consider eliminating the occasional inconvenience of shortened schedules of uncomfortable classrooms (especially for systems that have other pressing academic and infrastructure needs)?
What do you think?
August 28th, 2007 @ 9:30 am
People in offices don’t work well, or at all, if the office is too hot. Why should we assume that kids will do better? Yes, schools should be conditioned, but should take advantage of the most up-to-date technology, and building engineers need to be trained to run the more complicated systems.
August 28th, 2007 @ 9:54 am
Let’s try this–shut the A/C down in the administration buildings during the same days, and see how administration reacts. It’s a minimal cost for a huge benefit.
August 28th, 2007 @ 10:30 am
An administrator from Ohio writes:
“There is nothing more important than indoor air quality. While we still need windows that open in the classroom, the ability to take temperature out of the equation is crucial.”
August 28th, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
As a taxpaying person, I do not want to pay for kids to have air conditioning. I survived in hot, humid NY without it and got an education. Kids that want to learn will do so even in the heat. Kids that do not want to learn will not even in a climate-controlled environment. We did not even have fans in my high school. What they did do is start the day at 7 am and let us out early so we could avoid the brunt of the heat. Just change the hours as they did back then for us. Look at the past when people did not even have central heat yet learned by a stove in the corner.
August 30th, 2007 @ 9:50 am
An administrator from Arizona writes:
“Prior to my current position, I managed the HVAC department within our Facilities Management division for seven years. During that tenure we went from 70 percent evaporative cooling to 100 percent air conditioning in all classroom environments. Our summer monsoon season usually overlapped school opening. We would see, during the evap days, classroom temperatures above 85 and 70 percent humidity.
What I observed then, as now, was that students acclimate much more readily than the adults. One can conclude from this observation that learning is not as impacted as teaching.
Alternatively, in a college environment, the students are adults as well. I can attest from personal experience that it is very hard to concentrate when the environment is uncomfortable.
In closing, however, the issue is much more complicated than my simple overview and personal experiences. Each District must weigh its needs within unique weather trends.
September 4th, 2007 @ 9:42 am
Minimal cost? To A/C our district would add $500,000 per year to our utility budget and $100,000 per year for maintenance, not to mention initial capital cost and life-cycle replacement. We may have to do it anyway because we now have 4 elementaries with A/C, and having the other 28 without it creates equity issues.