As temperatures reached 95, Philadelphia students struggled with heat in schools: ‘They were all sweating’

As temperatures soared Wednesday, Promise Lamons struggled.

Though Lamons’ school, Sayre High, is deemed adequately air-conditioned by the Philadelphia School District and did not dismiss early Tuesday and Wednesday, most of her classrooms lacked air-conditioning units. And the cafeteria?

“Oh, my God. It is horribly under-air-conditioned. The cafeteria is really hot. They have two or three big fans, but they’re not really doing much,” said Lamons, an 11th grader who’s 16.

Two out of Lamons’ four main classes Wednesday had no air-conditioning, she said.

Through a donation from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, the district air-conditioned 10 additional schools this summer, leaving all but 63 of its 218 schools considered air-conditioned by the district. The rest closed three hours early Tuesday and Wednesday.

But the district considers only learning spaces in its “adequate cooling” metric, so climate staff — the people who keep order in schools and who are among the district’s lowest-paid workers — are often stationed in un-air conditioned hallways and cafeterias. And even in schools like Sayre, which did not close early, the buildings aren’t universally cooled, as Lamons noted.

“One class has a fan,” Lamons said. “You’re able to sit in front of the fans, but in the other classes, it’s just humid. The teachers do a lot of talking, and you have to try to focus.”

AMY Northwest, a middle school in Roxborough, dismissed early because of the heat, but district food service worker Antoinette Ford was sweating from the moment she walked into school.

“It was very, very hot,” said Ford. “It’s an old building, and the cafeteria is just very warm.”

Ford had one fan in the kitchen as she cooked barbecued turkey, pizza and corn for her students, but there were no air-conditioners or fans in the lunchroom itself, and kids just had to deal with it.

And since many of the district’s old buildings retain heat, though temperatures are predicted to cool some tomorrow, Ford said she won’t get much relief.

“With the heat going on with the steam tables and the warmer, the cafeteria is still hot,” said Ford, who’s been a food service worker since 2003.

Zachary Hill understands her pain. Hill, the physical education teacher at Nebinger Elementary in South Philadelphia, works in a gym that doubles as a cafeteria that, like the school’s auditorium, has no air-conditioning.

(Nebinger recently got new air-conditioning units, but some malfunctioned; the school had a half-day Tuesday but a full day Wednesday.)

“It’s really hot,” said Hill. “I just had a first-grade class — they were all sweating, competing to get next to the one plug-in fan. It was pretty miserable.”

Hill honors all student requests for water breaks or to sit out if students are too hot. But there’s not much else that can be done: The gym has a single electrical outlet.

At Rhawnhurst Elementary in the Northeast, teacher Michelle Bernardi’s fifth grade classroom is on the second floor on the sunny side of the Castor Avenue building — good for natural light, sweltering on days like Tuesday and Wednesday. She keeps her shades down to try to minimize the sun, but that makes it tougher for any breeze to pass through the windows.

“It’s just unbelievably hot,” said Bernardi, whose school dismissed early on Tuesday and Wednesday. “We’re a tiny little school with an incredible community of families, but we are bursting at the seams. We are very overcrowded, and the heat just makes it worse.”

One Rhawnhurst classroom has 39 students crammed into a tiny space, Bernardi said.

She does her best to distract students from the heat, Bernardi said, but it’s tough for both kids and adults.

“I’m wearing a dress, and I’ve completely sweat through it,” said Bernardi. “It’s so uncomfortable.”

Matthew Mandel teaches students English at Baldi Middle School, which by the district’s standards is modern, built in 1971.

Baldi is considered adequately cooled, but its quirky HVAC system means that students in some classrooms are uncomfortably cold and others are way too hot, Mandel said.

And because Baldi is another Northeast school that’s overcrowded — by hundreds of students, Mandel said, “There’s this domino effect. We don’t have flexibility to move kids to more comfortable spots in the building.”

Students and teachers manage as best they can, Mandel said, but the fact that something as predictable as hot weather routinely interferes with learning in Philadelphia is frustrating, he said.

“We have spent untold millions on new curricular materials,” said Mandel, “but we fail to take care of the basics.”