Should San Diego Schools Get Air Conditioning?

This is a question that wasn’t asked until recent years. San Diego is known for having fairly constant temperatures in the mid-70s all year long. That hasn’t been the chase for the past few years. In article in a San Diego local publication, San Diego Teachers: Air Conditioning Classrooms Needs More Attention, discusses the ways in which teachers think this is a crucial issue to address.

Some teachers say their rooms are greater than 85 degrees for days or weeks at a time. They say that the temporary measures school officials offer simply won’t cut it. They are forced to teach in the heat, and teachers agree that this slows student learning.

Though the weather has started to cool down, both coastal and inland schools in the San Diego Unified School District had many days in the 90s at the beginning of the school year. Teachers say that this is totally unacceptable, and information from the National Weather Service offer support for this perspective. Marco Pritonia, who works as an energy engineer at the Western Cooling Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis, says that temperatures like this are totally unacceptable in a classroom.

Officials at the school district say they’re working on a timeline to ensure air conditioning is in all classrooms. They say they’ll provide four portable air conditioners, each of which can cool two rooms, to each school.

Teachers have had to take steps to combat the heat. They’ve shortened their lessons, postponed tasks that involve memorization because they’re too difficult for students who lose concentration because of the heat, have dealt with distractions caused by personal fans students bring in and overhead fans that blow papers all over. They also provide up to six class trips to the bathrooms each day for their youngest students, who are encouraged to drink a lot of water due to the heat, but can’t travel to the bathroom by themselves.

Allison Curry a third grade teacher, says that every instructional minute is necessary. She goes on to say, “We're not just trying to stay at the same level as students in other schools, we're trying to catch up. We can’t afford to lose instructional time.”

There’s no question that air conditioning is more than just a convenience. It’s essential to the safety of students and to allow them to learn to the best of their ability. AC-World provides air conditioning solutions for everyone.