Do your kids school have air condition?

donna723

Well-Known Member
When I was a kid most people didn't have air conditioning in their houses, much less in the schools. No AC in the cars either. I guess we were just used to it. I sure couldn't do without it now!

I grew up in St.Louis, one of the hottest places on the face of the earth. And I don't remember ever being uncomfortably hot in school. All the classrooms had big windows that they opened up and transoms over the doors so a little breeze came in. We even played outside on playgrounds paved with black asphalt and it didn't bother us. The difference was that we started school in September after it had started to cool off a bit, not right in the middle of the hottest part of the summer! And we got out of school in the spring before it started to get really hot. It seems like schools start earlier and earlier every year, even just since my kids were in school. Some here started in the beginning of August. Give it another year or so and they will be going back to school right after the Fourth of July. Makes no sense to me. And it costs the school systems a fortune to air condition all those schools for the better part of August, usually the hottest time of the year.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
You do know why schools didnt start back till later in the fall in the "olden" days right? Kids had to work farms. They couldnt go back to school until the summer crops were in. Now kids dont do that so they can make them go back any old time. There are very few kids who actually work on a family farm anymore. Even 40 years ago there were kids who had to work the family farm to help bring in things like tobacco or other crops.

Tony and his brothers were in the fields from the time they were babies.
 
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Liahona

Guest
difficult child 1's school has a/c except for 4 classrooms. Yup, he is in one of them. He comes home sweaty. Its his teacher I feel sorry for. She is 7 months pregnant.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
All the schools in our town have air conditioning. But my dad taught for decades in schools with few windows and no air conditioning. they had ceiling fans which rarely worked. Well, the ones in his room worked but ONLY because he fixed them - and bought parts out of his own pocked if needed! I always thought it was nuts, esp as his room in the school he was at for the longest was on the second floor!

I have no idea how kids manage school in the heat in OK with-o air conditioning. There have been years when the schools had to postpone the start date because of the heat and when they did start they hauled in huge ice shipments and got pallets of bottled water donated because otherwise the kids and teachers would not have survived. I also want to know how in the heck the cafeteria people survive. those kitchens can get HOT even with air conditioning!

I can see not having AC in places like Wisconsin where it just doesn't get that hot for that long, but here we have very very hot weather (it hit 119 in our area this summer - not heat index, actual temperature) and in my opinion it is abusive to expect kids, teachers, cafeteria workers, etc.... to go without air conditioning. I know I couldn't handle it and would keep my kids home.

PLEASE be very careful about sending your kids to schools without AC if it is very hot in your area. Many medications, including those our kids are commonly on and those for asthma, among others, make people more susceptible to heat related illness.

Even with AC our kids are allowed to take water bottles wtih them to class, etc.... In the elem schools most teachers ask for a parent to donate a case or two of bottled water or they buy it themselves. The kids each get a bottle with their name on it and they use it for several weeks and then put them in the recycling bin. Dannon used to have a label program where the school got some money for each water bottle label, but I don't know if they still do that.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
We don't get extreme heat - but it's possible to get "hot enough" even in Sept. - and school never starts later than Sept 1.
I haven't seen this done since I was a kid, but... back when I was a kid, we got two extra recesses per day... and for every recess, the principal had the caretakers turn on the hoses by the door OUT of the school - and anyone who wanted one, got a shower. It was hot enough that 10 mins later you were mostly dry, but it did help keep us better behaved... especially us older ones who were on the 4th floor (ancient walk-up school!)
I think his argument in creating time for the extra breaks was that we cancelled PE - 2 recesses in a.m. and p.m. (4 in total) = 1 hr of physical activity, staged in a way that made sense in the heat.
 
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