On Tuesday, just after sunrise, the notices began to arrive in parents’ inboxes. These are the kind of clear district emails that attempt to sound composed even when the news isn’t. More had arrived by Wednesday morning. Winslow Township, Garfield. Bergen’s north. Hamilton. Park Prospect. Plainfield. Scotch Plains-Fanwood, but only for the younger grades. Township of Union. They all made the same announcement in slightly different words, such as “early dismissal,” “modified schedule,” or “please make arrangements,” and they all subtly pointed to a long-standing issue that New Jersey has been ignoring.
May is just around the corner. That’s the part that keeps coming up in conversations at gas stations, outside school gates, and in the comments sections of local news articles. It is anticipated that the upper 90s won’t arrive until July, or possibly late June if the jet stream behaves strangely. However, this week the state saw an increase in heat advisories as if summer had just skipped the line, and the buildings that were most vulnerable to that unexpected development were those that housed children.
You can practically visualize it. On the third floor of a brick building constructed during the Eisenhower administration, there is a second-grade classroom with windows propped open with textbooks and a single oscillating fan humming in the corner, doing its best. Instructors are improvising. Water in bottles was distributed. Quizzes are still being administered because, as a Boston student who described a similar situation in Dorchester told CBS News earlier this week, there is no justification for delaying an exam simply because the room feels overwhelming. It’s a sentiment that spreads. In Plainfield, it is the same.
Speaking with parents gives me the impression that this is more than just one hot Tuesday. It has to do with the fact that, in many parts of the Northeast, air conditioning in public schools is still viewed as a luxury rather than an essential component. For that exact reason, Philadelphia moved 57 schools to remote learning this week. The acknowledgement was presented as progress—fewer buildings were impacted than previously—which is an admission in and of itself.
In an article about the heat, Philadelphia resident Lauren Authur made a statement that likely resonates in many New Jersey kitchens as well. It became hotter than anticipated. Already, the electricity bill is a concern. Somehow, the children must be kept calm. It’s a brief, almost insignificant remark, but it encapsulates the peculiar predicament families find themselves in: paying extra at home to make up for what classrooms can’t offer, only to be asked to send their kids there the following morning.
With daily highs being broken in Portland and Boston on Tuesday, the National Weather Service had already declared this to be a record-breaking stretch. However, in an almost mocking turn of events, forecasts indicated that temperatures could drop to the mid-40s by Thursday. A swing of forty degrees in less than a week. It’s the kind of whiplash that reveals the true rigidity of old buildings, which are designed for one season and struggle in another, becoming more and more caught in the middle.
Policymakers and investors enjoy discussing bond measures and long timelines related to climate adaptation. This week demonstrated, in a more subdued manner, that adaptation is also a Wednesday morning phone call informing working parents that their kids will return home by noon. Every window on the hallway’s south-facing side is being opened by the school nurse. The decision to cancel recess is being made by the principal.
Nobody truly knows what will happen next. HVAC upgrades will be expedited in some districts. Others will endure the criticism, wait for grant cycles, and hope that May behaves itself the following year. As you watch this happen, it’s difficult not to get the impression that the calendar is advancing more quickly than the infrastructure and that, as usual, the children confined to those warm classrooms are the ones paying attention to the lesson that no one intended to teach.
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