Some schools pushing back start dates due to extreme temperatures

(NewsNation) — Temperatures have been soaring due to climate change, leading more and more schools to push back start dates to avoid extreme summer heat for students. 

Schools across the country — including in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Billings, Montana; and Philadelphia — have delayed the beginning of school past August and into September, reported Stateline. 

“We see examples all over the country,” Karen White, deputy executive director of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country, told the outlet. 

“I think it’s only gotten worse,” she said. 

Many districts have moved up their start date in recent years, but now, with extreme heat, that is no longer safe, some teachers say.

According to White, climate change and the extreme temperatures it’s caused have forced some teachers, including in Ohio, to demand air conditioning in collective bargaining, the outlet reported. 

Schools in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin all closed or dismissed students early because of excessive heat last month, according to Stateline. 

Last year, schools in at least nine states had to shut down or dismiss students early during the first week of September due to scorching and unsafe temperatures, according to a CBS News survey. 

This includes schools in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, among others. 

A Philadelphia school district said pushing the date back this year to after Labor Day will minimize the number of heat-related school closures. 

This will also “exacerbate inequities between schools that have air conditioning and those that do not,” district spokesperson Christina Clark told Stateline. 

Climate change will “probably hasten a push back to a September start in places that have somewhat temperate Junes,” Joshua Graff Zivin, an economist and director of the Cowhey Center on Global Transformation at the University of California San Diego, told the outlet. 

While Zivin advises that  more schools should invest in air conditioning, that will still not alleviate all the other issues heat brings. 

Students who have a hot commute to school or home temperatures too high to get a good night’s sleep see affected performance and might lead to calls for later school start dates, he told the outlet.