Teachers say heat not cool for school
ETFO to lobby government for air-conditioning funding for all elementary schools
Elementary teachers in Peel are worried about students sweltering in hot classrooms and are calling for measures to cool down Ontario’s elementary schools — including lobbying the provincial government for air-conditioning funding, indoor temperature limits and an official heat-stress plan.
“Last September was absolutely brutal,” said Chris Hoffman, who taught Grade 7 music in a portable at Tomken Road Middle School last year.
Hoffman, a vice-president for the Peel local of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), said it’s hard to teach when all students can think about is how much they’re sweating.
“If I’m in there all day and it’s unbearable for me, I can only imagine the students.”
Elementary schools typically don’t have air conditioning in the classroom, said Lisa Marie Gonsalves, occupational health and safety teacher adviser for the Peel local.
She said classrooms can get extremely hot at times during the spring and early fall — sometimes well over 30 C — posing health hazards for students and staff, while also making it difficult for children to learn.
With average temperatures rising each year, the Peel local presented motions for a vote Tuesday at the ETFO annual meeting — all of which were approved in the afternoon session.
The ETFO, through the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, will now lobby the Ministry of Education for funding for air conditioning or other heat-reduction systems in all elementary schools.
They also voted to lobby government for an upper indoor temperature limit at all elementary schools, at which point schools and boards would have to take action, “up to and including closing schools for the day.” Another motion called for all elementary schools to have an official heat-stress plan in place, so decisions aren’t left to individual administrators.
Heather Irwin, spokesperson for the Education Ministry, said it’s up to school boards to allocate funds to each school, and that boards are responsible for ensuring healthy and safe learning environments.
She said the ministry is spending a total of $1.4 billion in both the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years on school renewal and said boards can use this funding to install or repair air conditioning systems.
Of the 584 schools in the Toronto District School Board, about 125 are fully air-conditioned, said TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird. Some schools are partially air-conditioned, while others have no air conditioning.
Installing full air conditioning at every school would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and is “not currently in the cards,” said Bird, who says the TDSB has a repair backlog of more than $3 billion.
However, he said, the board is in the process of creating cooling stations in all remaining schools in large spaces such as gyms or libraries. The plan is expected to take five to seven years and would give students access to a “cooler area on days of extreme heat,” he said.
In the Peel District School Board,19 of its 215 elementary schools are fully air-conditioned, as are 27 of 38 secondary schools, according to a spokesperson.
In the Toronto Catholic District School Board, about 36 of its 200 schools have central air conditioning, a spokesperson said.
Last year, thousands of students across the GTA roasted in hot classrooms during a back-to-school heat wave in September. One Toronto teacher resorted to spending $500 of her own money on an air conditioning unit for her classroom, after temperatures hit more than 30 C. The GTA has had a cooler summer this year. However, Hoffman said global warming means classrooms will only get hotter in the coming decades.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario represents 78,000 elementary public school teachers and education professionals across the province. More than 800 members are attending the organization’s annual meeting this week in Toronto, which runs from Monday to Thursday.
The Peel Elementary Teachers’ Local represents more than 6,700 members, according to its website.