With extreme cold expected to overtake a large swath of the United States in the coming week, school districts are bracing for a fresh round of freezing temperatures, snow, and potential building closures.
Some areas of the Midwest, Great Lakes, and East Coast can expect up to a foot of snow, according to local forecasts.
Even for areas that aren鈥檛 blanketed with snow, cold could force students to stay home鈥攁n increasingly common phenomenon as aging national school infrastructure meets a changing climate increasingly dominated by extremes.
Meteorologists project some areas can expect 鈥渇eels-like鈥� temperatures to drop as low as minus 50 degrees in some areas of the eastern United States, and the National Weather Service that a 鈥渄angerously cold Arctic air front鈥� will settle over most of the East Coast by Sunday.
The winter weather system could affect many schools well into next week.
It鈥檚 become commonplace for schools with inadequate or no cooling systems have to close when the weather gets too hot, which is happening both earlier in the spring and later in the fall鈥攑补谤迟颈肠耻濒补谤濒测 interfering with the start and end of the school year.
But the other end of the temperature spectrum can also tax schools鈥� aging heating infrastructure.
鈥淲hat we understand about the changing climate is that the highs are going to be higher and the lows are going to be lower,鈥� said Jonathan Klein, founder of UndauntedK12, a national nonprofit that focuses on schools鈥� response to the climate crisis. 鈥淪o we should expect that in any given year, school districts are going to need to ensure they have modern HVAC systems to ensure their buildings are adequately heated or cooled so young people have healthy, comfortable indoor air to learn.鈥�
鈥淥therwise we鈥檙e going to keep seeing closures for extreme weather and mounting time out of school.鈥�
Schools across the country are seeing this play out in real time.
This week, schools in the , and canceled classes altogether. In Chicago, .
In mid-December, some teachers in the District of Columbia reported the temperatures in their classrooms鈥斺�攈ad dropped well below 60 degrees as temperatures outside fell into the 20s. Kids came to class wearing their winter coats, teachers told The Washington Post.
The school鈥檚 principal said in a letter to parents at the time that administrators were implementing temporary solutions like installing space heaters and moving students out of the coldest rooms.
The nation鈥檚 capital isn鈥檛 alone in trying to combat increasing cold with limited resources and aging infrastructure.
A middle school in Idaho because its heat pumps were not working and the building was too cold to hold classes, according to the school鈥檚 principal.
And in Montana, Shields Valley Elementary School . The 114-year-old school had used the boiler for 80 years before it broke and the school has not been able to afford repairs, relying on portable heaters to warm the building from the hallway during stretches of cold weather.
The district has twice tried unsuccessfully to pass bond measures to fund a boiler replacement.
Elsewhere, school leaders in and have said amid cold snaps in recent weeks that schools may be closed if temperatures are expected to drop too low to avoid problems with HVAC systems and water pipes.
Klein said the reports across the country鈥攑补谤迟颈肠耻濒补谤濒测 in the South and other areas where winter weather historically hasn鈥檛 caused widespread disruptions鈥攊s representative of a growing and urgent problem that districts need to take seriously and address now.
鈥淭hese extreme cold events expose the longstanding underinvestments in school infrastructure long-term, and the real-world consequences of that,鈥� Klein said.
The average school building in the nation is 50 years old, and 41% of them need their HVAC system updated or replaced, Mike Pickens, executive director of the National Council on School Facilities, told EdWeek last year. On average, those schools鈥� HVAC systems have exceeded their life expectancy by 15-25 years, he said.
One report released in December by organizations that monitor school infrastructure needs estimated there is a and what鈥檚 needed. In other words, districts across the United States need $90 billion more to fund needed infrastructure projects. Without that funding, schools are often delaying work like upgrading HVAC systems that can, in turn, help them keep their doors open in increasingly common extreme weather.
the effects of climate change鈥攆rom extreme heat to flooding to severe storms鈥攁lready disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities, and those impacts are projected to worsen.
Children in those communities are also more commonly than their white and higher-income peers enrolled in schools that lack adequate infrastructure to continue operating in severe heat or cold, amid wildfire smoke, and during other extreme weather conditions.
The compounding problems mean districts should prioritize schools in low-income communities when determining how to queue projects to switch to climate-resilient infrastructure, such as solar panels and upgraded HVAC systems, according to the EPA report.
School closures caused by a combination of extreme weather and school buildings not equipped for it 鈥渁re no longer abnormal,鈥� the report said, and 鈥渨ill only increase as climate change worsens.鈥�
鈥淭here are a lot of competing needs for scarce resources,鈥� Klein said. 鈥淏ut we know how important these investments are鈥攖here is so much evidence of the value of a modern, healthy facility for student learning, so we need to prioritize these investments.鈥�
