Here in Los Angeles, we
are headed for a weekend of triple digit temperatures again, and it’s
October. As our sun-is-always-shining
image morphs into a desert wasteland, it is time to revise the school calendar.
Global climate change
has had a profound impact on our environment, and although ignorant people
continue to question the science, you cannot ignore the most profound pieces of
evidence: the rising ocean levels, the
melting ice caps on our poles, the wild weather and massive storms; and in the
southland, the dried up lakes and reservoirs, the tinder-dry brush choking the
canyons, and the dangerously high temperatures.
When those temps start to climb, the demand for electricity across the
basin spikes, and air conditioners strain to handle the load. Schools feel the effects as much as everyone
else, even if they have air conditioners that work well. The heat makes kids edgy and restless,
especially if the temps are accompanied by their usual companion, the Santa Ana
winds. Joan Didion wrote my favorite
essay, “Los Angeles Notebook,” about these gusty, hot interlopers.
Years ago, LAUSD and
other local school districts flirted with year-round class schedules, mostly
due to overcrowding. However, the plan
lost its panache after a while and schools returned to the standard ten-month
traditional year. But here in southern
California, we need to look, not so much at year-round scheduling, but shifting
the summer break to take advantage of the changing nature of our seasons. Most schools dismiss for the summer in
early-to-mid June. Some even release
students in May. Everyone returns to the
classroom in August, often within the first week or two of the month. If we mount a comparison of the temperatures
within traditional summer months, May and June can be hot, but according to the Los Angeles Almanac, the average daily high for May in Los Angeles is 74
degrees; June averages 79-80 degrees. These
temps are manageable with air conditioning and shaded areas available to
students during recess and lunch. July,
August, September and October have daily highs in the 80s. The Weather Channel lists the highest
recorded temperature for the Los Angeles region as 113 degrees in September of
2010.
Here is my proposal: we break for the summer in July, possibly
even mid-July. Students are off from
July 15th through October 15th. By mid-October, the heat has left for the
most part, and students can comfortably study and learn. This means that the school year will run from
October through July, but the number of school days will not change (most
districts and private schools use a 180-200 day schedule).
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discusses several studies revealing that students performed better
in environmentally controlled classrooms with heat and air conditioning than in
rooms without controls. Of course,
anyone who lives in the blazing southwestern U.S. can tell you that heat kills
the brain. You can fry an egg on the
sidewalk and you can fry your brain in your brain pan. The University of Georgia cites a study done
by Herrington (1952) which found that students in classrooms with “temperatures
above 80 degrees” experienced “harmful physiological effects that decrease work
efficiency and output.”
At my wife’s Catholic school in Van Nuys, the students recently took their battery of standardized tests with
some of the hottest temperatures outside for the year. Her classroom has two window air conditioners
that cannot cool the room filled with 25-30 students. One can assume that those test scores will be
impacted by the environment in which they were administered, and since test
scores are the measure of success in the modern classroom, is it fair for
student progress to be evaluated in this way?
Is it fair to evaluate teachers working in such conditions based on the
scores of tests administered during a heat wave?
Why students have
traditionally gone on summer break June through August is often attributed to
the agrarian calendar formulated when much of America worked the land and
needed summers for field work, but this is not true. If schools followed an agrarian schedule,
they would be off in spring for planting and in fall for harvesting. State Impact: A Reporting Project of NPR Member Stations quotes Assistant Professor at
CUNY Kenneth Gold, who explained that schools in America did once have a year-round
school calendar. In 1842 New York,
students had 248 school days throughout the winter and summer months. The report goes on to list several reasons
for the fall-winter schedule with summers free:
1. Standardized
school years. School reformers wanted to
get rural and urban schools on the same schedule. Since rural areas had two terms—in the summer
and winter—and urban schools ran year round, a compromise had to be struck. But, why summer?
2. In
rural areas, the summer term was seen as “weak.” Gold said the summer term in rural
neighborhoods tended to be taught by young girls in their mid to late teens. On the other hand, schoolmasters, generally
older males, taught the winter terms. Because of this, the summer terms were seen as
academically weaker.
3. In
urban areas, rich families vacationed in the summer. City schools were trying to limit the school
year in the mid-19th century anyway, to adjust to the schedules of
wealthy families who would generally go on vacation in the summer.
4. It’s
hot in the summer. The school buildings
of the 19th century weren’t exactly air-conditioned. Heat during the summer months would often
become unbearable.
5. Summer
gives teachers time to train and get ready for next year. In the 19th century teachers didn’t
really go to college or get certified, so Gold said they would use the summer
months to train.
6. Doctors
thought kids would need a break. This
idea isn’t given much medical credit these days, but Gold said back in the 19th
century it was believed medically unsound for students to be confined to a
classroom year-round.
Those school buildings
of the 21st century are not all that much cooler than those of the
19th.
LAUSD and all area
private schools need to re-examine the school calendar and make changes. The drought, the extreme heat, the weather
anomalies are not an aberration or a temporary fluke in a single year. Most experts believe the drought will be with
us for years to come, and that Los Angeles will be a lot warmer in the
future. Winter may even become a thing
of the past. By all predictions, we may
soon be looking at a year with only two seasons: spring and summer. Those who will survive the colder and more
arctic winters in the east, also a result of climate change, will continue to
admire L.A. weather from afar, drawing conclusions from watching the sunny Rose
Parade every January. The reality,
though, is far more impactful, and the consequences to student learning could
be disastrous.
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