Tag: learning

Teach­ers from sev­eral boards describe stifling con­di­tions without cent­ral air

This article was written by Isabel Teotonio and Omar Mosleh, and was published in the Toronto Star on June 24, 2025.

Stu­dents and teach­ers grapple with heat in schools that lack cent­ral air

With Toronto in the grips of a heat wave, prin­cipal Anthony Levy spent much of Monday walk­ing the hall­ways of West Pre­par­at­ory Junior Pub­lic School doing tem­per­at­ure checks and mak­ing adjust­ments as mer­cury levels rose.

Classes on the upper level were relo­cated to the cooler base­ment, stu­dents did their work in the hall­way, recess became optional and teach­ers rotated kids through cool­ing centres, loc­ated in the lib­rary and a multi­pur­pose room.

“We did have a plan com­ing in,” Levy told report­ers at the school, near Allen Road and Eglin­ton Avenue West, where half the stu­dents were absent Monday. And “it’s a work in pro­gress as the heat goes up.”

Teach­ers and stu­dents across Ontario grappled with swel­ter­ing con­di­tions in schools that are sev­eral dec­ades old and lack cent­ral air con­di­tion­ing.

Monday’s heat was so extreme in Toronto that a power out­age left about 2,700 people without elec­tri­city, pools faced rolling clos­ures and the mayor vowed to intro­duce a motion this week to address what she calls “ser­i­ous gaps” in the city’s heat relief strategy.

As tem­per­at­ures soared — in Toronto it hit 36 C, but with the humi­dex felt as hot as 44 C — stu­dents were encour­aged to wear light cloth­ing, drink water, avoid phys­ical activ­ity and keep to shady areas in the school yard. And, when pos­sible, staff kept lights and com­puters turned off, closed blinds and cur­tains, opened win­dows, rotated kids through cooler spaces and used fans — some teach­ers used per­sonal fans, while oth­ers bor­rowed them from the kids’ par­ents.

The Toronto Dis­trict School Board, the coun­try’s largest, has 579 schools — 177 have cent­ral air con­di­tion­ing, 243 have a cool­ing centre (typ­ic­ally in the gym, a lib­rary or a mul­tipur­pose room), and the rest have small air con­di­tioner units in the lib­rary.

Board spokes­per­son Shari Schwartz­Maltz said schools were not closed because it would be dif­fi­cult for par­ents to find child care.

By com­par­ison, six Ontario French­lan­guage schools without air con­di­tion­ing were closed Monday and will remain shuttered Tues­day.

Sev­eral teach­ers from vari­ous boards — the Star isn’t identi­fy­ing them because they weren’t author­ized to speak — described stifling con­di­tions, not­ing many stu­dents were absent, and some left school early.

One Toronto kinder­garten teacher said the board should have closed schools without cent­ral air con­di­tion­ing, rather than treat­ing staff like “glor­i­fied babysit­ters.” At her school only the lib­rary is air­con­di­tioned, but all classes have fans provided by the par­ent coun­cil. Still, her classroom hit 30 C.

“It’s excep­tion­ally hot. We’re just try­ing to do calm, quiet activ­it­ies,” she said, adding water activ­it­ies in the shade out­side were planned for the after­noon.

One high school teacher in the Brant­ford area said Monday “was unreal, simply unable to work,” and sent a photo show­ing her classroom at 35 C.

While she even­tu­ally moved to a cooler space, “expect­ing any­one to func­tion in this heat was not real­istic. Stu­dents com­plained about not being able to think, and being stuck to seats when try­ing to stand up.”

And, she added, “you know it is hot when the toi­let seat feels like it is heated.”

Toronto mother Andrea Frenke picked up her kids, ages six and nine, from school dur­ing lunch­time because they weren’t feel­ing well. When she arrived, a hand­ful of oth­ers were also there to get their chil­dren.

“We’re talk­ing like five­year­olds and six­year­olds com­ing home and telling their par­ents, `I could barely keep my head up in class, I feel naus­eous, I have a head­ache’ … no one can learn in an envir­on­ment like this,” said Frenke.

Although one of her kids was in a classroom that had an air­con­di­tion­ing unit in the win­dow, that’s not suf­fi­cient given the body heat gen­er­ated in a class of roughly 30 stu­dents. Cent­ral air con­di­tion­ing in schools shouldn’t be a lux­ury, but is an “abso­lute neces­sity” on scorch­ing hot days.

“Some­times I just kind of laugh and cry, think­ing this is sup­posedly a very advanced developed coun­try, but we don’t have some of the most basic infra­struc­ture for the health of our future gen­er­a­tions.”

The province should require schools that don’t have air con­di­tion­ing to can­cel classes dur­ing extreme heat events, she added, while acknow­ledging this would put par­ents in a tight spot if they’re unable to adjust work sched­ules.

Emma Test­ani, press sec­ret­ary for Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter Paul Calandra, said boards have pro­to­cols on how to deal with heat and are respons­ible for ensur­ing each school fol­lows appro­pri­ate pro­vin­cial and muni­cipal health and safety require­ments.

“The province provides over $1.4 bil­lion in annual fund­ing to school boards to help renew and improve schools, includ­ing air con­di­tion­ing,” she said. “Over the next 10 years, our gov­ern­ment is invest­ing $30 bil­lion to sup­port school con­struc­tion, renewal and improve­ment.

“We will con­tinue to mon­itor the impacts of the warm weather and work with school boards to help keep stu­dents safe.”