Jan 28, 2023 3 min read

The Canon-McMillan School District recently opened a $78 million middle school on 32 acres in North Strabane. It’s a state-of-the-art structure and has amenities like updated technology labs, a music wing and a maker space.

It also has air conditioning.

The latter feature should, at first glance, not be that much of an eye-opener. Air conditioning is widespread – there’s hardly a retail establishment or office space that doesn’t have air conditioning, and 90% of American homes have some form of air conditioning. Few would disagree that it’s a necessity. Would you want to sit in a movie theater in the middle of July if it was a stuffy and stagnant 82 degrees in the auditorium? Not many of us would.

But many school buildings in the United States, particularly in those parts that tend to be cooler, do not have air conditioning. Many were built decades ago and would take millions of dollars to upgrade, and some were built when we simply didn’t have as many heat waves as a result of climate change. With academic years now typically starting in mid- to- late August and sometimes stretching a couple of weeks past Memorial Day, it’s inevitable that students will end up going to school on days more typically associated with lolling around by a pool.

And those hot days can end up being lost days for students and educators. Last May, Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia were closed because a springtime heatwave made it impossible for students and teachers to remain in their un-air-conditioned buildings. Studies have also found that academic performance dips as the thermometer rises. One found that students in New York were 12% more likely to fail a test on a day over 90 degrees than when it was a comfy 72 degrees. Another study found that in school districts without air conditioning, a 1-degree increase in temperature was associated with a 1% decrease in learning.

Joseph G. Allen, an associate professor and director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote in The Washington Post last year, “Two realities are hitting hard and fast: The first is that climate change is bringing more intense heat earlier in the season and for more days throughout the year. The second is that many school buildings in traditionally cooler-weather climates were actually designed to retain heat.”

Allen added that the design of school buildings that don’t have air conditioning “made sense in the 20th century.”

According to a 2020 survey by the Government Accountability Office, 41% of school districts were in need of heating and cooling upgrades. The cost for carrying them out is not small. But amid all the talk of upgrading the country’s infrastructure, that’s one aspect of the country’s infrastructure that should not be overlooked.