School Grades Go Up as Temperature Drops

So school is over, summer is here. As I drove away from the school where I’ve been teaching kindergarten for the past 17 years, I was thinking about how this year had been so different. This year I had an almost perfect record of student accomplishment.

As I thought about my students’ progress this year I wondered why the achievement rate was so high. I hadn’t worked any harder. The material we covered was about the same. The demographics and background of the students was the same. Then it hit me. Could it be? Was it so?

This year, unlike the past 16, I had been in an air-conditioned room. I had been less tired at the end of the year; the kids had done terrific. Is it that simple?

All of the money being spent on new programs, more coordinators, more enrichment, none of it seems to work. My advice as an educator is for every parent who really wants to see his or her child’s scores go up check and see if the child’s classroom is air conditioned.

Are parents aware of what the kids go through in school with no air conditioning? The teacher is irritable and the kids are miserable.

I say let’s take the lottery money and start putting air conditioning in all our San Fernando Valley schools. I could almost guarantee a rise in achievement in schools where the temperature sometimes reaches 98 degrees in the classrooms during September. How many other professionals or workers could perform to their best under these circumstances?

It’s up to the parents to see that this is accomplished. As teachers, we can’t put air coolers in the window. Some schools do provide portable fans, but the noise level plus the danger of a child getting his or her fingers torn apart just aren’t worth the benefit. For the upper grades, this is OK, but in the lower grades teachers can’t let kids stray too far.

I urge all parents to contact their school board, congressmen, principals to get classrooms cooled down--to help create a learning environment where your kids can achieve to their fullest.

MIMI STEINBERGER

Woodland Hills