Lawmakers advance bill to cool down outside areas at schools
SACRAMENTO — As California grapples with how to deal with heat waves made more intense by climate change, schools in the state may soon have to come up with plans for cooling down outside play areas by planting more trees and replacing surfaces like asphalt that swelter on hot days.
The state Senate passed the legislation that would require public and charter schools and districts to strategize on how to introduce more shade on campus, plant gardens and replace surfaces that hold on to a lot of heat with alternatives such as grass and wood chips. There’s no timeline for when the plans would have to be implemented.
“We needed this a long time ago,” said state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. “We are making up for the decades of delay that we’re in right now.”
Only a handful of state senators voted against the bill. It would still need approval in the state Assembly.
The bill is a starting point that will set schools up for any future, stricter legislation that could mandate how they have to mitigate heat, Menjivar said.
It’s one of many ways California could try to fight intense dry, hot conditions that have afflicted the state in recent years.
Last year, a brutal heat wave left the state debating how to avoid blackouts as people cranked air conditioners when temperatures broke records in several cities, including Sacramento’s all-time high of 116 degrees.
Children are at a greater risk than adults of suffering from heat-related illnesses that can cause nausea, muscle cramps, fatigue and fainting, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some groups agree with the broader goal to mitigate heat at schools but say the bill still misses the mark. Ian Padilla of the California Coalition for Adequate School Housing, which advocates for state bonds to help update school facilities, said implementing the legislation would cost too much and overlaps with some existing standards set by the state to plant shade trees outside buildings.
The legislation could cost the state “in the low to mid hundreds of millions of dollars,” or at least $10,000 per school by providing grants for schools to implement their plans, the Senate Appropriations Committee estimated.
Another flaw in the bill is the inclusion of wood chips as a possible alternative to things like rubber, Padilla said. Schools have in recent years moved away from wood chips because they could cause injuries to students when they fall down, he said.
Christina Hildebrand, president of A Voice for Choice Advocacy, a health nonprofit sponsoring the bill, said the legislation is needed to ensure more trees get planted in low-income areas where they aren’t already abundant.