By Dorothy Wigmore
It’s hard to ignore the heat-related warnings about the climate emergency in New Jersey:
- The 2025 New Jersey Scientific Report on Climate Change said the state “continues to warm faster than the rest of the Northeast region and the world.”
- In 2025, a 30-year analysis found that higher temperatures increase the odds of heat waves in the state, and they’re likely to get more frequent and intense, with less daily cooling.
- The state’s Extreme Heat Resilience Action Plan includes protecting workers.
How does heat affect us?
The consequences affect everyone working in and around schools.
Unchecked, heat kills. It also can cause heat rash, heat exhaustion, cramps and heat stroke, along with dizziness, muscle breakdown and acute kidney injury.
Schools face additional challenges because the features of their buildings are essential to learning.
“We’ve been in the sick building era for over 40 years, and we’ve neglected our school buildings,” Harvard professor Joseph Allen told the National Education Association in 2023. “We know that good ventilation and filtration are key to student health, student thinking and student performance, and yet closing schools has become our new reality.”
A 2018 Harvard study found that without air conditioning, each Fahrenheit degree increase in school year temperature reduced the amount learned that year by one percent. Other researchers found that “heat exposure during the learning period, all else being equal, directly slows the rate of human capital formation, in part through persistent disruptions to the learning process.”
The effects are not equitable. Hot and cold temperatures increase absenteeism, particularly for Black, Latinx and lower-income students. Heat also increases the odds of a student getting a disciplinary referral.
Staff also pay a price, with increased stress from dealing with heat-affected students, less instructional time and cognitive issues. Working outdoors adds to the load.
Heat stress also increases the likelihood of work-related injuries.
The Researchers found that even “moderate daily heat can subtly increase the risk” of injuries not usually linked to heat. “(W)hen workers become thermally uncomfortable, their motor skills, balance and cognitive function can degrade,” leading to mistakes and harm, especially for traumatic injuries.
How can schools beat the heat?
Without HVAC systems, older school buildings, which are common in the state, rely on air conditioners and fans for cooling. However, they often have insufficient power to run air conditioning all day.
In New Brunswick, former association president LeShaun Arrington fought for air conditioning in every space students use. Window units were installed in the pandemic’s early days.
“They’ve all updated their electrical systems to withstand the window units. But the buildings have old furnaces, so, in transition months, we’re not supposed to turn on the AC,” current president Melissa Vega explained on an April day where the temperature was expected to reach 90 F. “At least there’s a way to cool kids off (most of the time), which is huge.”
The district faces another problem in some newer schools. If the HVAC system breaks down, there’s no way to open windows for airflow. “It’s an imperfect system designed so you can’t open them,” Vega said.
More upgrades are needed, yet “it seems the environment takes a back seat sometimes,” Vega said. Federal cutbacks have affected state and school budgets.
The climate emergency has caused a school cooling crisis, says the Center for Climate Integrity. In 2021 it estimated that by 2025 1,806 New Jersey schools would have to make changes at a cost of $5,368,563,000. Once installed, it will cost another $130,095,000 annually to operate and maintain the systems, which would be the third highest in the country, behind New York and Illinois.
Bill A1973 could make all this easier. A third attempt to establish a heat stress standard, it would require employers to create job-related heat illness and injury prevention programs.
What can health and safety committees and activists do?
Following a three-day strike in 2022, the Columbus Education Association in Ohio bargained a memorandum of understanding:
Before the first regular teacher contract day of the 2025–2026 school year, the following spaces will be climate controlled: learning spaces, including but not limited to, classrooms, auditoriums, gymnasiums, libraries, cafeterias and teacher work areas.
Investigate heat pumps, an option to air conditioning. Increasingly promoted as energy and money savers, they cool and heat spaces with individual air-source and in-ground building-supplied systems.
In addition:
- Include temperature and humidity checks on walk-through inspections, taking photos and using results on maps as evidence of problems,
- Work with the designated person to inspect the HVAC system, window air conditioners, etc., arguing that the Indoor Air Quality standard’s requirement to keep indoor temperatures between 68 F and 79 F apply with or without HVAC systems, with relative humidity from 30% to 60%,
- Use the health and safety law’s general duty provision and the IAQ standard to protect members while working with the district to develop a heat stress prevention plan in line with the best of proposed and current standards,
- Push for climate control measures in discussions with the district, including bargaining and heat pump options, and
- Support legislation and funding for heat stress prevention plans.
Resources
Visit njwec.org for research and more information.