Sweating over school

The heat is on for students returning to the daily grind of classwork next week, and there may be no place in Maryland where that's more true than at Timonium's Ridgely Middle School.

[Tom McKearney]

Banning water bottles!? WTF?

Not having air conditioning is ludicrous in this area of the country. My suggestion to the teachers there is this:

- Get a large (20 cubic foot) freezer and put it in the teachers' lounge
- get shallow (2" deep) plastic pans or baking pans and fill them with water to freeze overnight.
- stick a few of these on open shelving in front of a box fan in the class room.
- Every day, you swap pans in and out of the freezer as needed and make sure they're all full and in the freezer every evening.

This is a pretty effective way to cool a room. It has actually been done for entire office buildings (I believe that one or more of the Westinghouse, now sold to someone else, buildings in Linthicum are handled this way on a large scale).

Tom

[Microg]

Given the current economy, I would normally say that air-conditioning should be put on hold. Most of my schooling was without air-conditioning and I survived. However, it sounds like Ridgely was remodeled with air-conditioning in mind and therefore seems to lack adequate fresh air ventilation (i.e. most non a.c. schools have classrooms with windows that fully open) Ridgely needs to have the chillers.

[George]

Another Baltimore school story that I didn't see reported by the Sun was Teach for America sending more teachers to the city. I'm excited about this and wanted to share.
http://www.examiner.com/a-1518788~Teach_for_A...

[Jill]

I think I speak on behalf of all of the teachers at Ridgely, who do our best to motivate and educate these students as they are melting in the 95 degree classroom, that we truly appreciate all that the parents have done to bring this issue to the public's attention.

[Bill]

As a knew teacher to Ridgely this year I can attest to the sweltering temperatures inside. In spite of all that, the Ridgely students continue to surpass all state standards. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. These Ridgely students and teachers are awesome!!

[billy bob]

hairston is bringing Balto County down in a number of ways>>>>If I were a young parent,I'd be looking elsewhere>All the funding is going to the west side---we'll be like the city in 15 years>

[Joe Schmoe]

Gee whiz!

How about demanding "reparations" for all of us who went to these sweatboxes in years past without benefit of air conditioning?

Surely we were all "disadvantaged" by trhis situation in the past.

Besides, I could use a little "taste"
from the public coffers that everyone clamors for these days.

[jrsposter]

How quickly we forget! Yes, many people attended school before A/C, but we didn't start school in August, and those schools were built to bring in plenty of fresh air. The ceilings were about twenty feet high, and the windows could be opened wide at both the top and the bottom. Ridgely, on the other hand, has been "renovated" into an oven.

Do not forget, also, that, in the past, when the buildings got too hot, the schools were closed early. This is no longer done in jurisdictions where all the buildings have A/C such as Montgomery and Howard counties. It is only rarely done anymore, even in systems where many schools have no air conditioning.

I would like to suggest that, until the chillers are operational at Ridgely, the people who made the decision to go without them should be required to surrender their nice air conditioned space to the Ridgely students, and themselves move into the second floor of the Ridgely building. Then we would see how long they continued to feel that cooling the air was too expensive.

In 1971, the Montgomery County Education Association negotiated a provision in its contract with the school system that all future schools would be air conditioned, and that all existing schools would be air conditioned "as funds permit." When by 1996, there were still some unairconditioned schools, a suggestion was made to some of the PTA leaders that the PTA's at all such schools get together and circulate petitions that asked people to pledge that they would not vote for any politician in the future who had not advocated and voted to put A/C into all remaining schools.

By 1992, all Montgomery County schools had been air conditioned, thirty-one years after the negotiation of the initial provision. Perhaps that ploy would be worth trying by parents whose children have to suffer and swelter.

The high achievement which has been a signal characteristic of both the Howard and Montgomery County school systems is something which I attribute to their minimizing instructional time lost to sweltering hours when no one can be productive. If we really want to leave no child behind, we should start by providing the same kinds of learning conditions which knowledge professionals take for granted at their workplaces.

Air conditioned schools also help school systems recruit the most highly qualified teachers. If you were a new teacher, which job offer would you accept -- one in an oven-like building or one in a building where the air temperature is comfortable?

[John]

It's sad how we Americans are so spoiled these days. As a student in a Baltimore County High School, I myself have several classes that have no "chillers." I hear other students complaining about the heat everyday and it gets annoying. 95 degrees? People in countries like Algeria face temperatures that reach over 100 degrees everyday, yet they play sports and continue other vigorous activities. The typical American would probably sit in their comfortable homes watching TV and eat chips everyday. It's probably one of the reasons why America is becoming one of the most obese countries in the world. Paying millions of dollars on trivial things like air conditioning is a waste. Our comfort can wait. Things that can't wait are the 24,000 kids in Africa who die everyday because of the lack of food. So what is really more important? Millions on A/C because of a little heat? Or the millions that can be used to save starving children?