As School Started in the US, So Did the School Closures for Heat
The Center for Climate Integrity estimates that 13,700 public schools in the US that didn’t need cooling in 1970 will either have or need it by 2025.
Dozens of US schools abbreviated their schedules last week due to high temperatures.
Photographer: Bing Guan/BloombergSusan Eckert teaches advanced placement biology at Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey. Her room sits on the second floor, right next to the lower level's heat-absorbing black tar roof. On hot days, Eckert cracks the windows in her classroom early, then closes them and the blinds as the sun starts to bear down. By the afternoon, though, nothing stops the heat. Eckert has bought five fans for her classroom, which she said registered 90F (32C) on the thermostat this week.
“I watched the weather for a week before school started, when I saw this heat wave coming,” she said. “I was just filled with dread, because it's such a hard way to start school.”