LETTER: Broken A/C systems in local schools

from the Las Vegas Review Journal

Joanne Leovy Las Vegas  |  September 16, 2022 

The Clark County School District’s half-hearted response to concerns about broken air conditioning in schools made me hot under the collar. CCSD should treat this situation with more urgency. Kids and extreme heat don’t mix well. First graders should never have to spend two August days in a classroom without working air conditioning. Children are more susceptible to heat-related illness due to differences in metabolism and sweating, and they often cannot respond to heat dangers without adult assistance. Heat causes problems with learning, attention, mood, and anger management.

With imagination and effort, we could transform our schools into hubs of clean energy and resilience to prepare for increased heat in coming years. Finances are often a barrier to progress in our schools, but two recent federal bills offer funding opportunities for CCSD to improve its HVAC infrastructure and adopt comfortable, efficient and resilient technologies such as heat pumps. The 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act provides $47 billion in grant opportunities to improve infrastructure and climate resilience. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act provides numerous funding options for state and local governments, as well as block grants for climate resiliency. I hope the CCSD administration is considering how it might leverage these funds to make schools more efficient and reduce risks to kids during heat waves.

Children comprise just under half of cases of heat-related illness and about 7% of heat-related deaths in the US each year. CCSD should make sure that none of those cases occur in our schools.