Many parents and teachers hope that last week\u2019s heat wave will galvanize Oakland Unified School District officials to address the problem as soon as this summer \u2014 and they have ideas<\/a>. Community members representing 25 schools from across the district showed up at last week\u2019s OUSD facilities committee meeting to urge leaders to address the issue immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n At Sequoia Elementary, the PTA bought Bluetooth thermometers to monitor classroom temperatures this year. Classrooms frequently measure five to 15 degrees hotter than the outdoors, said Rachael Kirk-Cortez, parent of a kindergartener. Last week, indoor temperatures reached 82 to 84 degrees in some rooms, according to data she provided to The Oaklandside.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a safe space for children to be learning or really even be in,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sequoia parents fundraised to buy UV window films and portable air conditioning units for the classrooms and measured temperatures drop by at least five degrees after they installed them. Now they\u2019re pushing the district to install similar cooling strategies this summer, including window films, portable AC units, and ceiling fans, in the 2,100 classrooms across OUSD that lack central air.<\/p>\n \u201cHeat is an equity issue,\u201d Kirk-Cortez said. \u201cWe realized we can\u2019t be doing this in isolation and asking for only our school to be solved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Student fatigue and health risks\u2019<\/p>\n This month OUSD published a new facilities master plan<\/a>, the first in six years, a 157-page document detailing all the maintenance needs at every property in the district. The report calls out the need for cooler buildings \u2014 and HVAC upgrades \u2014 as a top concern.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cExcessive heat contributes to student fatigue and health risks, reduces instructional effectiveness, and may lead to schedule changes or lost learning time,\u201d the report said. \u201cModernizing HVAC systems and expanding cooling capacity is therefore critical to education adequacy, operational continuity, and long-term climate resilience across OUSD facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n OUSD received about $8 million in the latest draw down of the 2020 facilities bond, Measure Y, allocated to districtwide ventilation and air quality improvements. Those funds haven\u2019t yet been allocated to specific projects, said Preston Thomas, OUSD\u2019s chief systems and services officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond that, major school renovation projects funded by Measure Y, including projects at McClymonds High School, Roosevelt Middle School, and Garfield Elementary School, all include heat mitigation infrastructure, district officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMost of our buildings were constructed before climate change became such a pronounced issue in our lives, and our area heated up the way it has,\u201d OUSD said in a press statement. \u201cWhen the weather warms up like it has this week, we make sure our school staff is taking steps to reduce heat such as keeping blinds closed, running fans and purifiers to move air, and not using heat-producing equipment. Likewise, we remind students to dress in layers and stay well-hydrated.\u201d<\/p>\n Playground renovations<\/a> involving philanthropies such as Eat. Learn. Play.<\/a> and the Trust For Public Land have also prioritized creating green schoolyards, the statement said, planting trees and plants to \u201creduce the heat island effects at schools.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Reid Williamson, a parent of two students at Sequoia, helped to acquire and install the PTA-funded portable air conditioning units in the school\u2019s classrooms. He wants to see the district be more proactive in addressing building issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to do a better job of maintaining our aging infrastructure rather than waiting for a big, new, shiny building to solve everything,\u201d he told The Oaklandside. Those larger renovations could be many years away for most schools, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a point that also comes up in the facilities report as well, which says, \u201crelying solely on full modernizations to resolve cooling gaps will leave many students in vulnerable conditions for years to come.\u201d The report is not prescriptive, and instead provides recommendations to help school board directors to prioritize investments. The Measure Y spending plan, approved in 2020, allocates funds to broad categories, allowing the school board to direct more specific investments. The board can also ask district staff for more specialized suggestions within those categories on how to spend the funds. The school board, ultimately, has the authority over how bond project funding is spent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe board ultimately approves capital spending priorities and specific projects,\u201d Thomas said in an email to The Oaklandside. \u201cStaff are currently installing temperature and ventilation sensors in classrooms across the district so we can develop an equitable, data-driven plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrice Berry, the school board director for District 5, acknowledged that the upgrades that come with major schoolyard and building renovation projects include heat mitigating infrastructures, but she would like to see what can be done in time for the start of the school year, in the heat of August.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gap that I think parents and educators and me as a board member are advocating for them to address is the more near-term, immediate work that needs to be done,\u201d Berry said. \u201cIt should be unacceptable to all of us that kids are going home ill. And that educators, on top of everything else they have to manage, that they also have to manage this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about one school or the other, it\u2019s about all schools and the community receiving answers about how the money will be spent, what the strategy is and what the timeframe is for that strategy,\u201d said Megan Parker, a parent at Manzanita SEED.<\/p>\n Beyond that, Sequoia parents are hoping to share their approach with teachers and parents at other schools to help them implement their own DIY cooling strategies until building renovations happen. Parker said families at Manzanita SEED are currently trying to replicate the work done at Sequoia.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Chiodo, the third grade teacher at Sequoia, the temperatures are tough to deal with in the classroom, and may also represent a broader undervaluing of public education.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a general feeling of, we\u2019re not that important,\u201d she told The Oaklandside. \u201cIf we could make schools that are the most pristine and beautiful and safest places for children to go, I think it would help not just the people working there, but the children to feel valued and important.\u201d<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several times a year, a heat wave rolls through the East Bay, leaving hundreds of Oakland classrooms sweltering.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,79456,3040,19],"class_list":["post-233121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-ousd-facilities","tag-ousd-school-board","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"18_08.06.2024_SchoolPlayground_Rodriguez_0\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/large-18_08-06-2024_SchoolPlayground_Rodriguez_0.jpg\")
In 2024, OUSD unveiled the new schoolyard at Melrose Leadership Academy, which includes more shaded areas and greenery. Credit: Katie Rodriguez for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n