With extreme heat forecast, Portland-area school districts are weighing their options

Schools across the metropolitan area face their first test of the new school year this week, as triple-digit temperatures are forecast for the region.

By Thursday, temperatures of 27 degrees and above could be reached in classrooms in older buildings without central air conditioning, especially on upper floors and in south-facing classrooms, potentially complicating the teaching and learning process.

That leaves school officials with a choice: They must either hope that the temporary measures to cool schools will last until the end of the school day, or send students home at lunchtime if conditions at their school require it. Canceling classes entirely because of heat is rare, although it has happened in summer school programs during sustained heat waves. The Oregon Trail School District in Sandy plans to close all day Thursday because of the heat.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Parkrose School District announced that its elementary schools, none of which have modern air conditioning, would close at 12:15 p.m. on Thursday. The Estacada School District said it would dismiss all students two hours early on Thursday because of the high temperatures. The Colton School District also announced that elementary students would dismiss at 12:50 p.m., middle school students at 2 p.m. and high school students at 2:10 p.m. The North Clackamas School District told families that its after-school program would not be offered because of the heat.

Portland public schools will be open during the regular school day, but extracurricular activities in buildings without air conditioning will be suspended Thursday, the school district told families Wednesday evening.

Only 13% of Portland public schools have modern central air conditioning, including Benson, Franklin, Grant, McDaniel, Lincoln and Roosevelt high schools, Kellogg and Tubman middle schools, Faubion K-8, Rosa Parks Elementary and Clarendon Early Learning Center. By spring, four more schools — Kelly and Lent Elementaries, Bridger-Creative Science K-8 and Harrison Park Middle School — will join that list, district officials said.

Extreme temperatures in classrooms were a buzzword during Portland’s teachers’ strike last fall. Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, said the gap between schools with modern, up-to-date facilities and those without is “the biggest inequality we have” within the school system.

The new contract between the Portland Association of Teachers and the school district states that if the temperature in a classroom exceeds 26 degrees, teachers must notify their principals in writing of the situation. The school district will then “provide an alternative classroom space as outlined in PPS’s heat mitigation plan.”

To prevent such widespread unrest, the school district announces that it will take the following steps:

• Leave school ventilation systems running overnight to allow cool air to circulate throughout the building.
• Make sure circulation fans are turned on early in the morning to bring in cooler air and turn them off later in the day when the temperature rises.
• In warmer weather, close windows and pull down blinds to minimize sunlight entering classrooms.
• Use pedestal and box fans to maintain air circulation in classrooms.

There have been reports of students falling ill during previous heat waves. Parent Regan Wozniak said Tuesday she was considering keeping her son home Thursday and Friday after he became seriously ill at school during a heat wave in late summer 2022. She had to leave work to rush to his elementary school and pick him up, she said, and although he recovered, “it wasn’t ideal.”

Courtney Dang, whose daughter is in fifth grade at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary in North Portland, said she is bracing for a difficult few days in the brick building, which dates back to the 1920s and lacks modern heating, ventilation and cooling systems.

“It’s the combination of an underperforming HVAC system and 30 people in a second-floor classroom. It just gets hot in there faster,” Dang said.

At the same time, she added, she hopes the school won’t close because of the heat. Many Boise-Eliot/Humboldt students rely on the cafeteria for breakfast and lunch, Dang said, and sudden school closures are especially hard for working families to cope with.

School districts throughout the rest of Multnomah County are in a similarly difficult position. In the David Douglas School District, only Menlo Park Elementary has central air conditioning, although both Cherry Park Elementary and Mill Park Elementary are scheduled to have it installed. In the Centennial School District, about 25% of classrooms have air conditioning, but only one school — Butler Creek Elementary — has it schoolwide. In the Reynolds School District, several schools do not have air conditioning in common areas such as gyms, cafeterias, hallways and multipurpose rooms, district spokesman Steve Padilla said.

By contrast, suburban districts to the west tend to be more modern. In the Beaverton School District, for example, nearly all of the district’s 53 schools have air-conditioned classrooms, district spokeswoman Shellie Bailey-Shah said. West Tualatin View Elementary has mobile units but will have central air conditioning installed next summer using funds from the district’s 2022 bond. And some classrooms at Sunset High School are not yet connected to the school’s central air-conditioning system, she said, but mobile air conditioners were distributed to those rooms Thursday morning.

Portland City School Districts will receive a $50 million grant from the city’s Clean Energy Fund earmarked for power and heating/cooling system upgrades, but the agreement to distribute the funds was only recently finalized and related work has yet to begin.

Portland Public Schools will receive the majority of this money, nearly $19 million. David Douglas School District will receive $12 million, Parkrose School District $5.7 million, Centennial School District $4.6 million and Reynolds School District $4.1 million.

But a comprehensive renovation of the ventilation and air conditioning system in an old brick school building could cost around ten million dollars, estimates Dan Jung, chief operating officer of Portland Public Schools.

— Julia Silverman covers education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her via email at [email protected]. Follow her on x.com at @jrlsilverman.