You begin to feel the sweat beading down your face, your body’s temperature is rising and the classroom is beginning to feel like a boiler room. It’s not just you, but everyone else in the building and trailers too.
Classrooms across the AHS campus face varying degrees of extreme temperatures. From one end, one class period could feel like you’re sitting in a walk-in freezer; while on the other, it’s straight flames and humidity building up like a sauna. As summer approaches, it’s more likely that the latter is going to be a more common sighting for staff and students.
In general, being in a room that is extremely hot and humid is a significant inconvenience for both staff and students. Moreover, teaching and learning is strained by irritable temperatures.
“The heat absolutely does impact my students’ engagement. They get very sleepy and agitated,” health and physical education teacher Chelsea Flores-Kulakowski said. “Likewise, I do the same. It doesn’t help that I’m pregnant and need cool air.”
The lack of reliable air conditioning (AC) units across fails to accommodate those who need it. Thus, staff members have grown to adapt to their classrooms by adopting climate-regulating devices. Flores-Kulakowski and history teacher Kayla Inabinett, whose rooms are both in the main building on the first and second floors respectively, utilize their own fans to cool off themselves and their students. On the other hand, government teacher Rachel Romasco owns a dehumidifier as classrooms in the mods can get extremely moist.
Students have also taken on other habits in order to adjust to the erratic climates in classes.
“My English class is always way too hot and then my math class is always super cold,” freshman Nathan Connelly said. “It’s annoying because I don’t like putting on my hoodie and then taking it off.”
While this might just all be the adverse effects of climate change striking AHS, we deserve more reliable cooling units rather than being in a pressure cooker that inconveniences all of us.
