The recent heat wave may have broken, but Kingston-area teachers are calling on the provincial government to do more to address the issue of excessive heat in classrooms.
Not every school in the region is air-conditioned and the record-high temperatures of the past week have been taking their toll on students and staff, according to the president of the union for elementary teachers with the Limestone District School Board.
“This heat is leading to difficulties. There are people with asthma it’s made worse. There are people getting hives, there’s respiratory problems, headaches,” Debi Wells said.
Many older schools in the region are not fully air-conditioned.
Scott Gillam is the supervising principal of safe and caring schools for the Limestone District School Board.
“We’re going to rely on the protocols that we have in place currently right now we think they’re doing good work our staff and our principals have done a great job at keeping students as cool as possible.”
The school board has a list of heat reduction strategies for staff and students including only engaging in light activities, moving students to cooler parts of the building and offering cooling stations when heat warnings are issued.
The union president for Limestone District Secondary teachers, Andrea Loken, agrees with the elementary teachers union’s recent call for schools to be closed if temperatures exceed a certain level.
“Oddly there’s a lower limit, under the occupational health and safety act for temperatures so it can’t go below I think 17 degrees but there’s no upper limit so we do need regulation.”
Union leaders say excessive heat in classrooms has been an issue for years — usually in June at the end of the school year.
But they worry that the effects of climate change may make the situation worse if fall heat waves become more common.
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