Long after summer ends, in many NYC schools (especially during weeks like this one), it's just plain #TooHotToLearn!
Students can't learn in sweltering classrooms. Unfortunately, many public schools in NYC lack air conditioning in their classrooms, auditoriums, gym, and cafeterias. As climate change brings more days in June, September, and now even the middle of October when rising temperatures make it too hot to learn, we need to get serious about getting A/Cs in all our classrooms and critical public spaces.
In June, the City Council required the NYC Department of Education & School Construction authority to produce a report outlining which schools need air conditioning.
Unfortunately, the new report (available on my website [1]) fails to provide critical information. It identifies 17% of schools with full air-conditioning, and 5% of schools (90 schools) that lack A/C entirely. However, 78% of schools (1,590) are simply identified as “Partial A/C” -- which means only that they have at least 1 A/C unit somewhere in the building -- without any information about how many classrooms, auditoriums, gyms, or cafeterias remain to be covered. (Meanwhile, just 4 schools are currently having A/Cs installed.)
So we are asking for help from parents, students, and educators to fill in the missing information. We’ve launched a new #TooHotToLearn campaign – which you can read more about in DNA Info [2].
Here's how we’re asking for your help:
1. Fill out this quick survey [3] to tell us about the need for air conditioning in your school. (How many classrooms lack A/C? Is there A/C in the auditorium?)
2. Find out what NYC DOE says about your school in the attached report on my website [1]. (They classified each school as YES/NO/Partial/AC Installation in Progress)
3. We want to make sure we get information about schools across all of NYC. Tell your friends with kids at other schools to help us too. Send them to the #TooHotToLearn survey [3] and share your experiences using #toohottolearn
Together we can get the information (and non-sweltering classrooms) we need!
-Brad
Links:
[1] http://bradlander.nyc/toohottolearn
[2] https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161019/park-slope/air-conditioning-nyc-schools
[3] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0o0arfB08YFsDRUMsfsLFqb3upuaEmH4H5Py-vNtrby5ovw/viewform