Uncool Is the Rule in Room 12 in Valley

About 12,320 classrooms in the Los Angeles Unified School District are air-conditioned, but as 27 fourth-graders at Colfax Avenue School in North Hollywood discovered Tuesday, Room 12 is one of the 10,500 that isn’t.

“It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot,” 9-year-old Elvis Prescott II said as he streaked his Magic Marker in furious strokes across a sheet of white paper, pausing only to wipe tiny beads of sweat from his chin. “Whew. It’s hot.”

Like Elvis, about half of the 390,000 Los Angeles students returning to school Tuesday came back to classrooms that lacked air conditioning and sweltered in the middle of a nasty heat wave that drove temperatures close to 100.

In that sort of heat, teachers said, even the most attentive students begin to wilt and their attention spans droop as the temperature climbs. So as the mercury danced around 100, Room 12 became typical of scenes played out across the district as teachers abandoned their lesson plans and improvised their way through the sweltering first day of school.

“You’ve got to be flexible in this heat,” said Room 12’s teacher, Aiko Utsumi. Only four of Colfax’s 25 classrooms have air conditioning, mostly because it is a single-track school and there is only money to outfit the year-round schools. “All we’re doing is trying to think cool,” Utsumi said.

Utsumi canceled the cursive writing and math skills tests she had planned. Instead, she guided her class of fidgety 9-year-olds through a day of puzzles and craft projects, the most useful of which was a paper fan.

Although students were required to attend a full day of school Tuesday, many schools will operate on shortened schedules today.

To keep students cool, Utsumi turned off the lights, closed the blinds and brought in a bag of ice for the pupils, but it was gone before the morning recess. In Tuesday’s informal atmosphere, some students tried to beat the heat by kneeling near a small fan at the back of the classroom. There was a larger fan, but it made so much noise that it could only be used when Utsumi wasn’t talking.

Trying to glean what educational material she could from the heat, Utsumi conducted an unscientific experiment to determine whether it was cooler for students to sit together on the floor or at their desks. First, she gathered her students together on the floor.

“But don’t come too close to me because I’m hot too,” Utsumi said, shooing away a handful of students.

Then she asked them to sit still and be quiet for one minute. They repeated the routine at their desks.

“OK, is it cooler on the floor or is it cooler in your chairs?” Utsumi asked.

Six votes for the floor, 21 for the chairs.

“Why do you think that is?” Utsumi asked.

Half a dozen students raised a hand.

“I think,” said 9-year-old Rachel Gomez, “that it is cooler in the chairs because you are all scrunched up on the floor.”

“They’re learning science and they don’t even know it,” Utsumi said.

What the students of Room 12 did know, however, is that they were hot, really hot. That became obvious when they were asked to write down two words to describe themselves: “Happy and hot,” “Pretty and hot,” “Thirsty and hot,” “Hot and swety.”

Adults were more eloquent. And more passionate, angry that students were expected to work and learn in the heat.

“It’s insufferable,” Utsumi said. “It’s criminal.”

“It’s inhumane,” PTA President Ellen Wilheim said.

“It’s hot,” 6-year-old William Hodish said flatly as he took a break from playing kickball. “It’s very hot. It’s like 100 degrees, or even further, like 105.”

Like many of his fellow students, Hodish began the 20-minute morning recess by running and jumping across the blacktop in a rousing game of kickball. But after a few rounds the game dwindled from 10 children to five, to two, to one as the heat forced players to seek shelter in the shade.

Finally, only 6-year-old Cyle Covert was left, and he sat on the ball. “Waiting,” he said, “for my friends. They’re too hot.”

And Cyle?

“Nah, I’m not hot,” he said. Then, pausing for a moment to wipe his forehead with the back of his arm, he changed his mind. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m hot.”