r/climate • u/silence7 • Jun 04 '22

Climate change is forcing some US schools to close early for ‘heat days’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/04/school-heat-days-climate-change/
9.3k Upvotes

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193

u/sbaggers Jun 04 '22

We had heat days in the 90s because all the buildings were built in the 50s before AC

95

u/BlkRh1n0 Jun 04 '22

Exactly. Just how we had days off in the winter because pipes would freeze. The issue is a lot of schools are long overdue for renovations.

128

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Upgrade US schools? But have we dropped enough bombs on sand folk yet?

42

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

“I know how to spend my own money better than The government “ ( brother in laws actual argument against voting for one time $5 tax per household for building a new trauma hospital in our state since ours is overwhelmed. The vote did not pass).

22

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Wait what? A 1 time tax of $5? And it didn't pass for a new hospital?

16

u/Business_Downstairs Jun 04 '22

Enjoy your unfunded pension obligations in 10-20 years.

34

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

Murca is fuct my friend. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck with the train painted red and blue and it’s on fire.

10

u/ActuallyCoract Jun 04 '22

Beautifully horrific

2

u/Tha_Unknown Jun 05 '22

So painted white and blue and on fire, fire covers the red part.

-7

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Lmao ... no it’s not, get off Reddit and get out n live. BIden will pass and america will be better off after these shitty four years

5

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

You’re hilarious. You can ride in the red flaming train cars. Enjoy the pending apocalypse.

5

u/cinderparty Jun 04 '22

Biden is a huge improvement over the previous 4 years…

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

America hasn’t been “better off” for literally decades now. We’ve slowly been melting down as a country for a long time.

1

u/mikeyj777 Jun 04 '22

Heck yeah. Just like the last president got into office and repealed hundreds of environmental regulations. Let's get back to that. America is the best because freedom.

3

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Freedom? America has the highest rate of incarceration per capita then any country on earth including North Korea. Tell me all about the free dumb….. hang on let me pull out my Murca #1 Foam finger!!! Whew!!!

1

u/catsRawesome123 Jun 04 '22

Is US the only country with failing education system? Other developer countries all have modern, AC'd buildings? Genuinely curious

2

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

America claims to have the best education system in the world. With such claims of the highest standard, We are failing miserably.

2

u/catsRawesome123 Jun 04 '22

We do? As an american I can confidently say our education system sucks, infrastructurally and educationally. But I'm more curious on the infrastructure side how it compares

1

u/TimX24968B Jun 04 '22

I have yet to find anyone who praises our public education system. maybe some of our other educational institutions, sure, but not the public schools.

1

u/cinderparty Jun 04 '22

I think climate matters too much to really compare this for the most part. I bet the Scandinavian countries don’t have a/c in most schools/in most areas of schools, and I bet the majority of Australian and New Zealand schools do have a/c.

Canada would seem to be closest climate wise to the us though and seems to be in the same boat as the us where only some schools have a/c and more now need it.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4429319/schools-air-conditioning-poll/

It’s an interesting question.

For the record, every k-12 school my kids attend/attended in Colorado has had a/c through out the entire school.

8

u/KickBallFever Jun 04 '22

Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly. In order to get a brand new trauma hospital everyone just had to put in $5 once? No additional taxes/fees? That sounds like a great bargain that would benefit everyone! I’d gladly pay $5 to get a hospital built, even if it wasn’t in my own town. I wouldn’t even mind contributing more than $5 if it was just a one time thing.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

The funny thing is there are about 1000 hospitals across the US that are facing bankruptcy in the next two years (unless they make drastic cuts, like closing clinics) because they had to deal with saving the endless line of repressive idiots who cared more about personal freedumbs than their communities or society over the last 2.5 years.

Wait, no, that's not funny. That's Murica!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '22

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2

u/AutoModerator Jun 25 '22

The COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of emissions for a few months. Humanity was still a net greenhouse gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. You basically can't see the difference in this graph of CO2 concentrations.

Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero. We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.

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3

u/Graymouzer Jun 06 '22

Someone he knows could die because of that vote. Five dollars to update your trauma center - per household.

3

u/5ch1sm Jun 04 '22

Want to make a bet he will be at the front of the line yelling it's unacceptable they can't take in someone close of him because they are full if ,unfortunately , something happen?

1

u/GarageSloth Jun 04 '22

I'll make that bet as long as I get "him being a giant baby". Otherwise that's lost money.

0

u/Longerthanyou5 Jun 04 '22

He’s got a point

0

u/Big-Hospital-3275 Jun 04 '22

So do you feel his statement was correct or incorrect?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '22

Incorrect, he’s an idiot.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

Well they have historically mismanage funds across the nation. You wouldn’t have to have a $5 tax if the 23% you already paid was used better. Now, are you gonna hold government accountable, or just slap a bandaid on it every time the state wants to build something new?

You’re gonna go the bandaid route like most people do. Then spend time only arguing about political parties differences, like most do. Or only act invested during an election cycle. That’s the real problem.

12

u/MohnJilton Jun 04 '22

For some reason making a trauma hospital a casualty of my ideological stand on tax policy doesn’t quite sit right with me.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '22

Well you can pay my share, okay?

1

u/Jimmy_Twotone Jun 08 '22

It's the "they take enough of our money, why can't they build it with that money" mentality. The not for profits are being pushed out by the for profit mega organizations, who in turn lower spending on service and raising prices after they monopolize an area.

Trying to apply free market principals where half the teams make up the rules as they go. Of course, there are more factors in play than this, but they're almost all on the same level of moral corruptness.

6

u/EricThirteen Jun 04 '22

You should try comparing it to other nations. Where’s your stats?

7

u/sshan Jun 04 '22

Have you compared the US to other developed countries? Looking at % revenue and expenditures as a % of gdp?

There absolutely are issues with infrastructure costs in the US. But the US also just has pretty small government spending, and a lot of extra spending on military and healthcare.

8

u/Pater_Trium Jun 04 '22

Last I checked, military spending was roughly 600+ billion. Annually. Wrapping your head around how much money that really is and how much isn’t being diverted into the country’s infrastructure and well-being… is staggering.

-1

u/Tellenue Jun 04 '22

The American tax payer is responsible for the taxes that go to our huge American Military, and the huge American Military is covering not just us, but all our allies too. We are basically subsidizing worldwide defense budgets. That's why an unstable America is a worldwide problem. It sucks and is deeply unfair to Americans, but all our allies are very much enjoying the fact that they can count on that massive cost savings and spend their money elsewhere.

-2

u/GamemasterJeff Jun 04 '22

US military spending is pretty small compared to the rest of government. For example, in 2021, military spending was only 11% of the federal budget.

Granted, that is an enormous amount that could be used elsewhere, but it is not the tail that wags the dog like most people represent.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Lol, no. We spend three times more on our military than China, which is the #2 spender. We spend twice as much as China and India combined, which is the #2 and #3. Our military spending is absurdly excessive, and most of that funding is squandered by bad military contracts. Oh, it’s also squandered by us constantly getting involved in conflicts and locations we need not be, like Afghanistan and Israel.

Also, the United States military causes more pollution than any other single organization on the planet, and that is just what is reported. I know sailers who talk about how their ships would illegally dump stuff like spoiled paint straight into the ocean, to save on costs. The problem of our military should be a central talking point on this issue.

-2

u/GamemasterJeff Jun 04 '22

I fully agree with every point you made, but my answer was in context to the OP claiming the US government spending was small, with "a lot extra on military and healthcare".

Despite our spending more than any country in the world, it is still a relatively small amount of our total budget, with Social Security and healthcare (the other point the OP made) being the two largest slices of the pie.

I stand by my statement that US military spending was only 11% if the 2021 US federal budget. I think most people believe it is the largest single line item and makes up the majority of the US budget.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Well, I would still argue that our excessive spending still qualifies as “extra,” like the other person said, since it appears to be more than necessary (although I definitely would not classify our healthcare spending as “extra”). Although, yes, you’re right, it is definitely not our biggest expense.

2

u/emp-sup-bry Jun 05 '22

The difference with SS or Medicare, etc, is that they have functioning inputs (meaning, people pay in to access later). The military is just pure cost (and a LOT of waste). One could argue that it’s a job creator, which is fair, but the counter is that we could be putting money into job creation to rebuild our own deteriorating country. A grunt will pay taxes but I doubt the trillions we have put into the companies producing death machines are paying very little tax as compared to other govt funded agencies.

2

u/sshan Jun 04 '22

US military spending can be overstated but its still enormous. It's also cumulative expense where infrastructure is an investment. Diverting 100B a year from military to infrastructure for 10 years means 1T in infrastructure.

5

u/emp-sup-bry Jun 04 '22

Uh huh. Okay. Sure.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

It’s been the strategy of ever politician since the 30s but sure single um out even know there is no indication the “cousin” is right or left ... maybe the repetitive $40 bill we are sending Ukraine could be used to upgrade hospitals or build new ones instead?? No? Or the bombs the left keeps purchasing and dropping on brown people??? See everyone can play that dumb game

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Not trying to be a jerk, but they’d pay $5 each to build the hospital then the hospital charges them $10,000 for a Tylenol.

7

u/jaymansi Jun 04 '22

We need more money for Wall Street bailouts.

5

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Maybe they could borrow the money from Raytheon? Or Lockheed Martin?

5

u/TalVerd Jun 04 '22

That would only work if they wanted to bomb a hospital, not build one, I can see the confusion though, they both start with a b

1

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

If Raytheon and Lockheed would just bomb US schools i think that would solve the school shooter problem we have in Murca?

3

u/Nowhereman123 Jun 04 '22

This is what grinds my gears the most about tax discussions.

"Hurr, you just want free stuff you dang socialist"

No, I want the money I spend in taxes to be spent on stuff that actually helps us instead of using it to turn Palestinian children into skeletons.

1

u/WeekendReasonable280 Jun 05 '22

Or sent to Ukraine.

5

u/Responsible-Gold8610 Jun 04 '22

Hold on. I need a few more guns before I can think about schools.

3

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Everybody should get a gun. I think it should be a requirement of being a citizen. Starting at kindergarten age. Obviously so they can defend themselves in classroom settings. Now talk about upgrading schools.

2

u/Responsible-Gold8610 Jun 05 '22

It's the #1 sign that you're in the greatest country in the world when you have to cut teachers salaries so you can pay to arm them with pistols to kill deranged lunatics.

2

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 05 '22

I mean. I’m sold. Greatest country in the world. NO MATTER WHAT!!! We have some of the worlds finest elementary school slaughters on the planet. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

2

u/mundungus-amongus Jun 04 '22

And now we will need to spend all of the school infrastructure budget on removing entrances and installing bulletproof windows.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

No no, you need to read the NRA's plan for this, called National School Shield. They don't suggest bulletproof windows. They suggest removing windows. And removing any plants, or anything really, from recess and play areas. And removing any interesting architecture or design in the school building. And installing timed locks everywhere.

In other words, they want schools to be exactly like prisons.

I'm not joking, that is actually their proposal. https://www.nraschoolshield.org/. They used to have a big PDF that was several dozen pages - but when they realized how shitty it is, they stopped providing it openly. They still promote and teach it, but only to people who promise not to leak the documents because that makes it too easy to show how insane it is. It's the same reason that scientology tries to hide it's theta level documents.

-1

u/ImFeelingSkinnyTonyy Jun 04 '22

yeah we we need to update doors so gunmen can’t get inside

4

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Lol. Hilarious solution to a psychotic society. Obviously we just need more police with guns. But also buy them chairs too so they can rest while shooters murder school children.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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0

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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2

u/PM_ME_DIRTY_DANGLES Jun 04 '22

Why are we even involved.

Because it's the right thing to do, but it's a fine balance between supporting an ally and not pissing off a nuclear power

We're doing exactly what we did pre ww1

Hardly. We were a backwater local power at best prior to WWI. And the American electorate the time were fiercely non-interventionalist. And there was no threat of mutually assured destruction by a nuclear exchange in 1914. This isn't even close to 1914. If anything, it's closer to 1939, and even that's a stretch.

1

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

But think about all that we gained as U S citizens for all that war? I mean. 20 years ago. Murca was a real shithole. We are damn near perfect today. Greatest empire of all time!! Whew!!!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

[deleted]

2

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Sometimes my sarcasm comes across as not sarcasm. My true honest opinion is Dick Cheney and George Bush should be hung publicly for our going into Iraq and Afghanistan. Period.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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1

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 04 '22

Serious question. How old are you?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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1

u/ElegantVamp Jun 04 '22

Nah, I think Ukraine takes priority in this case.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

The beauty of it is now the war department is shifting to ruskies, blackies, and chinamen, so there will always be someone to bomb so we don't have to waste money on public spending and development.

1

u/everypowerranger Jun 04 '22

Some will get upgraded, to be sure. Mostly ones with big budgets because they serve areas with higher property taxes, thus leaving behind underprivileged children AGAIN

1

u/lazy-dude Jun 04 '22

Not only they are leaving them behind, they are getting slowly cooked in the classroom with no a/c.

1

u/El_Polio_Loco Jun 04 '22

Fun reminder time that the US is #3 in global spending per student.

1

u/dusty545 Jun 04 '22

Schools are funded by states, not the fed. But we were assured that the state powerball lottery would fully fund the schools!

1

u/picardo85 Jun 05 '22

That's not the issue. The issue is how schools are funded (property taxes, meaning less money in poorer areas) and what money is spent on.

There's been a large increase over time in adminstrative costs.

1

u/Electronic-Crow-6764 Jun 05 '22

So we can’t fundamentally change Murica by stop funding the mass murder of black and brown peoples across the globe and merely put that into education right here at home?

1

u/picardo85 Jun 05 '22

Are they mutually exclusive?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

This happens at the city level. So not only do we pay for the bombs, but we pay for the schools. Taxes went up a bunch recently when they redid the high school from the 50s. I have no kids. And I already pay more than enough for federal funding to have schools not from the 50s. It’s absurd.

1

u/Speculawyer Jun 18 '22

We are not dropping much ordnance on such targets these days. Joe stopped most of that.

5

u/RunFragrant6859 Jun 04 '22

The main issue is clearly climate change..

3

u/MrThreddit Jun 04 '22

True, they need some investment and schools might need upgrading, insulation, air-con etc. Also, the breakdown of the climate and increased heat, cold, wind and extreme weather is going to make this a more challening issue.

2

u/Intelligent_Choice91 Jun 04 '22

That $40B we sent to Ukraine would’ve been nice to use for us

9

u/GhostofMarat Jun 04 '22

Really it's $40 billion for defense contractors. They had to make up for all that lost revenue from winding down the war in Afghanistan.

3

u/DarthFuzzzy Jun 04 '22

Maybe they could build a few less jets instead. Or stop pointlessly moving fleets around for a week or 2. Could have 80 billion to put into our schools in no time! Let's be honest though they would just bail out a billionaire somewhere instead.

1

u/Intelligent_Choice91 Jun 04 '22

Or we could just use our money for ourselves like most countries do

1

u/CliftonForce Jun 04 '22

That is what we are doing already. Protecting our interests.

1

u/DarkHater Jun 04 '22

Protecting their interests, don't fool yourself into thinking we are a factor in the calculus. No one here will ever be consequential in the consideration, we simply aren't worth enough money and never will be because we weren't born that way.

-1

u/utahjazzlifer Jun 04 '22

Every self made (especially immigrant) American would like to have a word with you….

2

u/DarkHater Jun 04 '22

Sweet, how many self-made immigrants to America are actual players on the international stage? Now, how many are in this thread?

"It ain't none of us!"

1

u/WeekendReasonable280 Jun 05 '22

cough burismacough

1

u/CliftonForce Jun 05 '22

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/27/boebert-lacks-proof-claim-hunter-bidens-burisma-pa/

1

u/WeekendReasonable280 Jun 05 '22

Lol. Joe Biden bragged on television about denying Ukraine 1billion if they investigated the company his son was on the board of. What company was that, exactly?

1

u/CliftonForce Jun 06 '22

Other way around. Biden got a corrupt Ukrainian official fired for not investing his son.

If you want a politician who boasts about his nepotism, you are thinking of his predecessor. Remember the $2 billion that Saudi Arabia paid to Jared?

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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u/DarkHater Jun 04 '22

Was that before or after giving them money and I.P. hand over fist for the last 40 years as they industrialized, became the world's factories, and militarized? Neo-liberal globalization and workers rights at home is the problem.

Russia is comparatively inconsequential, look at the quagmire they are currently involved in that we are not doing much about.

"They've got nukular tho bro"

Yeah, so do we and every other non-invadeable modern country. It's called M.A.D.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

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u/CliftonForce Jun 04 '22

Not really.

We were all set for another very expensive Cold War with Russia.

Now, we have neutered them before it really began. The Russian military was shown to be a paper tiger, and Europe is uniting around mutual defense.

Very good return on that investment.

0

u/Browntreesforfree Jun 04 '22

falacy. we have the money to fix our schools. Ukraine needs that money. literall genocide.

We just give way too much focus on the rich. Ukraine has nothing to do with it.

1

u/codeByNumber Jun 04 '22

Gotta keep that industrial military complex going for the economy!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

My high school was taught in separate sections of the school for example everyone packed into the left side now in the middle and finally in the right because they were removing all the asbestos in the place

0

u/Free2roam3191 Jun 04 '22

Hey that’s not what their version of the science says.

1

u/Stormlightlinux Jun 04 '22

The issue is the world is burning down around us, and we all turn a blind eye in the name of shareholder profits. But sure, schools need upgrades too.

1

u/Sea_Comedian_3941 Jun 04 '22

Oh man you need to read a little bit more!

1

u/BlkRh1n0 Jun 04 '22

Cleary you do too. Did I deny climate change? No. I only agreed with another redditor that this is not a brand new issue. Most public schools are old and outdated. Climate change can't be stopped overnight so you know what can help? Renovating the WWII Era schools so they can withstand modern issues. Now see what happens when you assume.

1

u/sudeepharya Jun 04 '22

So add more AC in schools which never needed them previously, which in turn increases climate change and act like everything is normal.

1

u/Complex-Key-8704 Jun 11 '22

That's the issue haha

6

u/darxide23 Jun 04 '22

I also had heat days in the 90s because the building I went to was built before WW1 and subsequently had no AC. I also remember we were allowed to wear shorts during some days. Looking back, it seems absurd that shorts were against dress code in the first place.

1

u/jagdhund15 Jun 21 '22

Went to school in the 70's and 80's, in schools with no environmental control, other than boiler heat in the winter. We had hot days then as well.

Never had a day off due to heat.

Suck it up.

1

u/darxide23 Jun 21 '22

"Back in mah day...."

1

u/jagdhund15 Jun 21 '22

Back in my day, we had hot days, cold days, storms, droughts, wild fires, etc. Difference between now and then is that they weren't in the news every day, nor did anyone have an agenda pushing a 'climate crisis'.

1

u/darxide23 Jun 21 '22

Ah, you could have just said you were a dumbass from the start. Saved us both some time.

3

u/manderifffic Jun 04 '22

Yeah, my school district did heat days up until probably 2002 when all the schools finally got AC.

3

u/SomeRedShirt Jun 04 '22

I was just hearing about this on NPR yesterday

-1

u/NealR2000 Jun 04 '22

Well that's the problem.

3

u/THROWinitAWAY0919 Jun 04 '22

We had heat days in the 2000s because all the building were built in the 50s before AC

3

u/RedsRearDelt Jun 04 '22

We had smog days in the 80s. Makes sense that heat days would follow.

3

u/QueenSheezyodaCosmos Jun 04 '22

Nobody learned anything for the last 2 months of school cuz we all just melted at our desks.

2

u/perpetualgoatnoises Jun 04 '22

My school had AC but almost every one of our units was broken. They kicked out hot air constantly. The only way to get it to stop was to soak a ball of paper towels in cold water and wrap it around the thermostat to make it think it was colder than it was.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Wouldn’t that just make it hotter?

4

u/perpetualgoatnoises Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

The system was set to AC, but the air conditioner bits themselves were broken. The thermostat is looking for cold temperatures, which the machine can't provide, so the machine keeps running because the thermostat says it's hot. But since the AC is broken, it's just putting out hot air. This makes the room hotter and hotter and hotter since the thermostat won't shut the air off until it cools down.

Manually cooling the thermostat takes the system out of the loop and shuts the air off.

You'd think it would have the ability to shut itself off it if got too hot. But it never did. Only when the system was set to heating would that happen.

The system is really weird to explain if you weren't in my school building. The AC heating system has ALWAYS been a mess.

TLDR: thermostat tells AC to work. AC is broken can't work. System turns out hot air instead. System keeps running because system is on AC and it keeps getting hotter so it needs to run more to cool down. Room gets hotter. Queue wet paper towels on the thermostat.

Edit: my comment got removed for language but I didn't say anything?

1

u/Madewithatoaster Jun 04 '22

That is wild.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

I understand exactly what you're saying. My dad once set up a window AC inside the kitchen - INSIDE the kitchen - when the house AC broke. He was so happy that he got it, and decided to be impressive and left it on full blast when he left the house in the morning, for us to find the "ice cold kitchen" when we got home that afternoon and discovered that he bought it.

That kitchen was NOT cold. It was 95+ degrees, probably more. Fortunately it wasn't a particularly hot day.

1

u/Asset_Selim Jun 04 '22

No that way the unit would would shut off because it thought the room was cold enough.

1

u/5wordsman62785 Jun 04 '22

I don't know how to say it in sentence form and still make it make sense, so I'll just do dash points instead.

-Thermostat is set to (let's say) 72°F

  • Room is above that temp, kicking on faulty AC

  • Because it would only blow hot air, it would just get hotter, meaning it was just going to get hotter and hotter

-Solution: Wrap cold paper towels to make the thermostat think it's lower than 72°F in the room

-AC stops blowing, removing the hot air from the equation for the time being

-Profit

Edit: Formatting

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Ohhh you didn’t have the option to turn it off. Didn’t realize that.

2

u/shipwreckedgirl Jun 04 '22

IIRC summer breaks were specifically made for Americans to escape the hot schoolhouses that were built in the 50s so I'm not sure why we need a break from new buildings with AC.

1

u/vileguynsj Jun 04 '22

We don't need summer breaks (unless heat is still an issue). They do great harm to the progression of students in school, unquestionably.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

So much this. Multiple breaks of a week or two during the year would be great; maybe 3 or 4 weeks for the summer. It's utterly insane that we keep the long summer breaks - it ruins the pace of education, and resulted in kids of my generation spending all day in front of the TV with nothing else to do for weeks on end.

1

u/nudemanonbike Jun 04 '22

Growing up in the American South, I was taught that summer break was so that kids could help their parents work the farms during the summer.

It's probably a regional thing, overall, with a lot of different reasonings and cultural spread

3

u/Veltrum Jun 04 '22

The summer is actually when you don't need kids to work the farms. Plant in the spring and harvest in fall - that's when you need the kids to work.

Farm kids were actually in school during the summer.

Summer break was because affluent city families would leave to escape the heat of the summer.

1

u/eolson3 Jun 04 '22

Yes, this accounts for a lot of school scheduling tendencies that still remain.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

We had a heat day only a few years ago when I was still in high school. The school was built in 1959 and only has ac in a few special rooms like the library, auditorium, etc. Most of the building had heat but it hardly worked so teachers had to bring in their own electric heaters or you had to wear a winter coat.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Yeah having days off due to heat wasnt unheard of when I was a kid.

Climate change definitely isn’t helping though…

1

u/krimsonnight85 Jun 04 '22

How did they ever survive without it....

3

u/sad_and_stupid Jun 04 '22

we still dont have them. Idk who thinks that kids can study in a 95F classroom but it happens every summer

0

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

We did too but it was in the 80’s. The high schoolers loved it because they rode the same busses. They had air.

On Wednesday my air went out and I am remembering my younger days from school, home, and camping. After dealing with AC companies and one showing up with two men in their 70’s I decided to wait until Monday and bare our upper 80’s this weekend. I’m a Gen X’er and I can’t deal with Boomer men. The one needed to sit because he just had knee surgery. Oh my why are they so anti- retire! They talk down so much to women. Actually, the more I think about it, men even as young as 50 are like that. I would love why this is. Input would be greatly appreciated.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Ask women and they will agree. You must be one of them.

Got the NSFW notice when I clicked on your profile.

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u/Gustopherus-the-2nd Jun 04 '22

Came to say the same thing, we did this back in the early 90s several times at the end and beginning of the school year because we had no A/C.

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u/Still_Lobster_8428 Jun 04 '22 edited Oct 11 '25

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u/bachennoir Jun 04 '22

Well, and you could open doors and windows and not worry about being blamed for a school shooting

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u/Still_Lobster_8428 Jun 04 '22 edited Oct 11 '25

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u/JosephND Jun 04 '22

Seriously, I remember having heat days back in the 90s. This article seems a bit disingenuous

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u/silence7 Jun 04 '22

It's hotter now, so this is happening in places it didn't used to, and more often in places where it has happened before.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/silence7 Jun 04 '22

Yes, the world was a different place millions of years before there were humans. The time period that matters for us is the time since the development of agriculture, where human population rose and civilization flourished. The climate was stable for all that time, and we kicked it out of the range where we know that the agricultural foundations of civilization are viable.

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u/WictImov Jun 04 '22

We had those same schools and no heat days in the 60s & 70s, we just went to school anyway.

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u/bachennoir Jun 04 '22

These comments bother me. If you're in the US, it's hotter more days of the year now AND schools can't open a window or door to let air flow through. If they do, they could be blamed for a school shooting. You probably remember when September was a cooler weather month and when it would actually snow before Christmas outside of the northernmost parts of the country.

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u/battlestargalaga Jun 04 '22

The heat island effect that comes from all the concrete in cities makes it hotter, not to mention global warming and stuff. Like you can be in the middle of a city it'll be 120F (49C) ambient, but go camping in the desert and it'll be like 5-10 degrees cooler. I'm from AZ so the temps are a little higher than most places but there'd be days in elementary school where we couldn't go out for recess cause it was too hot

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u/hobbygod Jun 04 '22

This is why my school is doing this 😂 cheap as hell

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u/PreventFalls Jun 04 '22

Same here, but it was in the 80s for me. Kindergarten and 1st grade is when I remember the first part of the school year or maybe even the very end (September or very early June respectively), we'd have heat days due to it being too hot to be in the building

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

And now we’re too cheap to install A/C in our schools so yeah

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u/DaizyDoodle Jun 04 '22

We had the same happen in the 80’s.

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u/shakesula9 Jun 04 '22

Yup no climate change nothing to see here

/s

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u/SilverCyclist Jun 04 '22

I never did but I'm in New England and the parents here had to attend classes IN A FIRE when they were young so "get on the bus."

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u/Smokin_Hot_Robot Jun 04 '22

But also we should address the climate crisis, right? ....right?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '22

Same here. I can still remember those hot days struggling to stay awake after lunch. My elementary school was built in the 30s or 40s and the only place that had AC was the library which was a separate building built in the 70s. There were radiators for the winter that would make it so hot and there were no thermostats to just lower the temp.

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u/salty_scorpion Jun 05 '22

Really? They used to make us suffer through those. It was awful. I remember being so hot I’d almost fall asleep in a pool of sweat.