In an interview on WBAL Radio, Baltimore County Public Schools board member Kathleen Causey discussed why she voted against changing BCPS’ heat-closure policy.
Causey
The board voted on Tuesday to amend its three-week-old policy, which had said if the heat index is forecast to reach 90 degrees at any point in the day, schools without air conditioning would be closed. The new policy says the heat index must be forecast to reach 90 degrees by 11:00 AM in order for those schools to close.
“My concern is for our elementary students who are most at risk due to their age, they are less able to adept to the heat and their school day does not end until 4:00,” she said on the program. “So, if we hit a heat index at 11:01, those students are going to still be in the classroom at four, maybe five hours as the temperature rises.”
You can hear the full interview here.
That is a good point. Another element that would make the revised heat-closure policy broader for such situations, and a proposal made by some AC supporters and others after much research: BCPS still needs to send ALL students home early on high-heat afternoons (as BCPS had the logistical ability to do previously), …. Other things to be discussed: to provide cooling relief in schools, at least partially by spring or before, especially for schools waiting the longest for central-AC. Assemblies in a cooled gym in the afternoon in the most challenging schools? Other creative solutions? S0ME portable AC units? (This should not be political. And btw, the county-linked Bykota Center, a former school, has LONG used window AC units.) Overall, we are talking 27,000 students here, or nearly one quarter of the county public school population of 110,000. It seems the superintendent still has the discretion to close schools early if the heat, or any other weather event such as snow or high winds, hits in the afternoon… If so, people should press for that on the days when the heat index strikes later, and the air quality is bad, etc. Otherwise the schools are simply ignoring students’ and teachers’ red, overheated faces, headaches, nose bleeds, and even cases of fainting and throwing up. In some of these hot-box schools, this is not “a little sweat.” The scenario is: kids in darkened rooms with heads on desks in survival mode, as one mother noted. Please do what it takes to… Read more »