‘SOAKED WITH SWEAT’: Hamilton students suffering amid heat wave
Nearly half of the city’s public schools lack air conditioning
About an hour after she dropped her 10-year-old son off at school, he called to be picked up.
“I’m ready to come home. It’s too hot here,” he said.
By around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, his third-floor classroom at George L. Armstrong Elementary School on the Mountain had already exceeded 30 C, according to the portable thermostat sent with him by his parents.
A younger sibling, 8, opted to finish the day at school, arriving home “sopping wet, just soaked with sweat,” said mother Melanie Iles. “It’s not OK,” she added. Despite teachers’ best efforts to keep students cool with fans and frozen treats, Iles and her husband decided to keep their kids home on Wednesday and Thursday.
“I wouldn’t want to be there. Why would I send my child?” she said.
Parents and educators are reporting stifling classrooms, headaches and lethargic kids as a multiday heat wave grips Hamilton.
The intense conditions prompted the city on Wednesday to issue an extended heat warning, which is expected to remain in effect until Friday at the earliest.
It’s a reminder that heat waves during the school year are becoming more common and intense as the planet warms.
But hot schools are a problem the public school board says it can’t currently fix.
It would cost an estimated $52 million to install air conditioning in the schools that don’t have it — nearly half of all Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board buildings. The board says it isn’t in the budget.
Forty-one of the board’s 94 schools were fully air-conditioned, and 10 more were 95 per cent cooled, as of June 2023. Meanwhile, 100 per cent of Catholic schools are fully cooled, something chair Pat Daly previously told The Spectator the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board had prioritized.
During heat events — issued by Hamilton public health when daytime highs reach 31 C and nighttime lows are at least 20 C for two or more days — public school staff are expected to monitor classrooms that have no cooling and take appropriate measures, such as limiting physical activity, closing blinds, turning off lights, rotating classes through air-conditioned spaces, and watching for signs of heat stroke. The board has also amended its extreme weather policy to allow classrooms and schools without air conditioning to close when indoor temperatures surpass 45 with the humidex.
As of Thursday afternoon, no classrooms or schools had closed, the board said.
HWDSB chair Maria Felix Miller said she’s seen ample communication reminding principals of the tools at their disposal. As always, parents are able to keep kids home if they feel the need, she said.
“We’re monitoring it,” she said. “And we’re trying our best to mitigate how kids are feeling in classrooms.”
In high school, students are starting to write final exams, a daunting task some worry will be even more difficult amid high temperatures. Heat is distracting, Miller previously told The Spectator, and makes it hard to focus.
Crystal Schram’s daughter, who is in Grade 9 at Westdale Secondary School, is preparing for her first evaluation on Thursday, when the forecast calls for a high of 31 C.
Schram worries about how her teen will fare amid the extreme weather.
“The lack of airflow mixed with the stagnant hot air has resulted in my daughter coming home with a headache all this week,” she said. “I feel so guilty knowing what she is suffering through while trying to learn.”