IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE
The lack of air conditioning in many schools is causing gym classes to be cancelled,
Astudent at a Bloor West high school is speaking out about the need for better measures to combat high temperatures and humidity in their classrooms.
Georgia Gallagher, principal at Ursula Franklin Academy, sent a letter to parents Monday explaining that the school was cancelling gym classes because, like most Toronto District School Board (TDSB) schools, the 89-year-old building doesn’t have air conditioning.
“It was hotter than I expected,” said 17-year-old Grade 12 student Daniel Pliszka. “They’re not making enough effort to cool it down.”
Pliszka said he’s grown used to stifling classrooms in June, when school is winding down, but the heat wave during some of his classes last week made it hard to concentrate.
“My work, everyone’s work, suffers. Everyone tends to focus on how hot it is and not on the lesson that’s being delivered,” Pliszka said.
Gallagher said gym classes haven’t been cancelled outright. The letter was meant to indicate that the school takes the heat issue seriously, and to lay out options if it continues.
“We wanted parents to know that we’re aware of it. We get it,” Gallagher said. She said one student was sent home Friday feeling unwell because of the heat.
While it can be a struggle to stay cool in an old building, Gallagher said there’s nothing the school or board could do that isn’t already being done.
“We have cold drinks — either juice or water — and granola bars available all the time in case any students need them,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher’s letter said staff would focus on opening windows, using fans and moving where possible to cooler parts of the school.
But that’s not enough as far as Pliszka is concerned.
He said it’s unfair staff in the admin- istration offices get round-the-clock air conditioning when students don’t. He’s taken to breezing through the office on his way to class just to cool down, he said.
There aren’t enough fans and the old building doesn’t get enough air flow for windows to make much of a difference. TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird acknowledged the problem of sweltering schools but said there isn’t much recourse.
“We do know that it gets hot, but it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to put air conditioning into all our schools,” Bird said. The priority right now, he said, needs to be on dealing with the $3.4-billion backlog in maintenance and repairs that the TDSB is facing.
Of the board’s 588 schools, only 119 have facility-wide air conditioning. Others may have air-conditioning units in communal spaces such as the office or library, Bird said.
The TDSB does not have a maximum heat cap or a protocol governing high temperatures, Bird said.
Decisions about how to mitigate the heat are left to individual school administrators, and the results aren’t tracked across the system, he said.
The Catholic school board does have a heat protocol. It sets out guidelines and requirements triggered by heat warnings or extended heat warnings issued by the city.
There have been two heat warnings and one extended heat warning so far for September.
Having so many days of high heat strung together is unusual, Bird said.
“We know it’s uncomfortable in some of our schools. Our staff do all they can to keep students as comfortable as humanly possible.”