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up front Monday 9 SepteMber 2024
School districts race to invest in cooling solutions as classrooms

and playgrounds heat up

lies need, and so planting
Continued from Front these trees, even though it's
going to take time for them
There is also accumulating to mature and provide the
data on temperature in- full host of benefits, there's a
equality and the effects of slew of benefits they provide
heat. Low-income neighbor- immediately."
hoods and communities of Paying for the needed
color, which describes Agui- changes
lar's, can be as much as 7 For the hottest schools, these
F (3.9 C) hotter than richer solutions are often out of
and whiter neighborhoods, reach.
leaving students and educa- The Department of Energy of-
tors to swelter in a warming fers Renew America's Schools
world. Extreme temperatures grants and the Environmen-
also affect learning, perform- tal Protection Agency has
ance and concentration. the Climate Resilient Schools
Yet there are well-known program, for example, but
ways to cool down schools they often don't cover the full
and neighborhoods. "When costs, and schools sometimes
the solutions are so at hand don't have the staff to apply
and readily available," said for and manage grants. In-
Joe Allen, associate pro- creased maintenance costs
fessor and director of the Ronnie Jefferies works on the parking lot at Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School where are also a concern.
Healthy Buildings program at it is being repainted to help cool it by making it more reflective, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Relying on grant money "can
Mableton, Ga.
the Harvard T.H. Chan School Associated Press completely exacerbate the
of Public Health, these con- haves and the have-nots"
ditions are "unacceptable." adaptation technologies. 2017 — part of district-wide said V. Kelly Turner, an associ- when it comes to reducing
In Phoenix, Aguilar became "And as climate change gets conservation and sustain- ate professor at UCLA. climate change and adapt-
a leader, joining the school worse... I think adaptation ability efforts. It's important Now more schools are tear- ing to its harms, said UCLA's
board and helping to pass a measures like this are only as California heats up; this ing out hot asphalt or turf or Turner, "because it's going
$50 million bond that funded going to become more and past July was its hottest on rubber mats in favor of green to be the schools that have
a number of solutions in her more important," he said. record. schoolyards, which can in- more resources" that can go
Osborn Elementary School Workers recently rolled that These roofs — as well as win- clude grass, gardens, mulch after these grants.
District. same cool surface on the dow films, paints and other and trees. Between 2022 Many believe schools
Other schools like Aguilar's parking lot at the Science, technologies — reflect a and 2023, California alone shouldn't be left on their own.
are also starting to spend Arts and Entrepreneurship portion of the incoming solar granted more than $121 mil- Each of these individual so-
on these fixes. School as part of the school's radiation away from a build- lion for these efforts. Experts lutions makes a difference,
Cool ground surfaces sustainability goals and ef- ing, rather than allowing it say trees are one of the best said Greg Kats, founder of
On a hot day in 2022, stu- forts to minimize heat. Both to transfer into the building ways to cool things down — the Smart Surfaces Coalition.
dents at a school near At- times, the roofing manu- as heat. These are some of they lower air and surface But combining efforts with a
lanta pointed thermometers facturer GAF donated the the easiest and least costly temperatures, and research local government or neigh-
onto their basketball court coatings and labor. Without actions a district can take. has found that shade from borhood means "you can
and got a reading of 105 F that, the school would have Experts agree cool roofing trees alone can reduce the add about ten degrees of
(about 40.5 C). had to raise funds, said Scott does bring down the indoor heat children experience by comfort to a school, which
A roofing manufacturer do- Starowicz, the school's co- temperature and reduce the as much as 70 F (21 C). means that the kids can be
nated a bright blue, solar-re- founder and chief financial need for AC. Chaffey's roofs At Parkway Elementary in outside playing. It means
flective coating and helped officer. now sit at around 90 F (32 C). Sacramento, a city that has that the windows can be
them paint it on. They took With the new, cool surfaces, The district has also invested led the urban tree planting open. It means you don't
another reading, this time it Starowicz said he feels "like in steel shade structures, trees movement for years, about have the loud grinding of
was 95 F (35 C). we're doing our part" to miti- and thermometers that con- 50 heat and drought-toler- an air conditioning," he said.
As students of the private gate heat. sider things like temperature ant trees — including coast "It's just sort of integration,
school learned, paved sur- Cool roofs and window films and humidity to monitor heat live oaks, Chinese elms and right, of different strategies
faces get really hot in the East of Los Angeles, roofs stress. "There's a high level of ginkgos — replaced an old, over a larger geographic
sun. They absorb solar en- across the Chaffey Joint urgency," said Rick Wiersma, rusty backstop and one of area," he added. "You're re-
ergy and slowly re-radiate Union High School District assistant superintendent of three underused, turf soc- ally sort of transforming the
it out as heat, increasing air used to reach 140 F (60 C), business services. cer fields this summer thanks school environment."
temperatures by as much as officials said. Hot roofs can Cooler, greener schoolyards to a $400,000 grant. The In Phoenix, Aguilar's efforts
7 F (3.9 C). make upper-floor classrooms On hot days in Berkeley, Cal- project is part of a Califor- improved the district's air
Cooling playgrounds and unbearable. if., Sharon Gamson Danks re- nia schoolyard forests effort conditioning and installed
roads by making them This affected a lot of kids. members seeing her kids and to increase tree canopy in shading structures at play-
more reflective is not new, Chaffey is the second-largest their peers sitting in slivers of public schools, especially in grounds, bus stops and court-
but interest has been grow- high school district in Cali- shade along the edges of underserved communities. yards. The work is ongoing;
ing along with more under- fornia with 24,000 students. their school building. They'd Chamberlain Segrest, en- Osborn district recently got
standing of the way the Nearly 65% are Latino or His- huddle under play structures, vironmental sustainability the money to plant 100 more
accumulation can affect panic. too. manager at Sacramento trees and add more shade.
entire neighborhoods, known Chaffey has now spent $11.4 "When they're outside, they're City Unified School District, "I think for me, that was like,
as urban heat islands, said million in bond money and kind of getting overheated said the trees will take years it's only going to get hot-
Daniel Metzger, a fellow at maintenance funds to con- from two directions, both to mature, but "we want to ter," Aguilar said of her ex-
Columbia Law School who vert asphalt shingle roofs from direct sun exposure but think more long term about perience. "I knew that we
studies these passive climate to white cool roofing since also from really hot surfaces," what our students and fami- needed to take action."q