With extreme heat in the forecast, Portland-area school districts weigh their options

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

By Thursday, classrooms in older buildings that lack central air conditioning, particularly those on upper floors and those facing south, could reach temperatures of 80 degrees and higher, potentially hampering teaching and learning.

That leaves school officials with decisions to make: hope that stopgap efforts aimed at cooling schools hold until the bell rings at the end of the school day or send students home at noon if conditions at their school warrant it. Completely canceling classes because of heat is rare, though it has happened with summer school scheduling during sustained heat waves.

The problem is acute in Portland Public Schools, where only 13 percent of the district’s schools have modern central air conditioning systems: 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 elementary schools, Bridger-Creative Science K-8 and Harrison Park Middle School — will join that list, district officials said.

Extreme classroom temperatures were a rallying cry during last fall’s Portland teachers strike. Portland Teachers Association President Angela Bonilla said the gap between schools with modern, up-to-date facilities and those without is “the biggest disparity we have” within the school system.

The new contract between the Portland Teachers Association and the district says that when a classroom temperature exceeds 80 degrees, teachers must inform their principals about the situation in writing and the district will “provide an alternative space for learning as outlined in the PPS Heat Mitigation Plan.”

To prevent such widespread disruption, the school district says it will take the following steps:

• Keep school ventilation systems running at night to circulate fresh air throughout the buildings.
  
• Make sure circulation fans are on early in the morning, to draw in cooler air, and then turned off later in the day when the temperature rises.
  
• Close windows and lower blinds as the day warms to minimize sunlight entering classrooms.
  
• Use floor and box fans to keep air circulating in classrooms.
  

During previous heat waves, there have been reports of students falling ill. Parent Regan Wozniak said Tuesday she was weighing whether to keep her son home Thursday and Friday after he became violently ill at school during a late-summer 2022 heat wave. She had to leave work to rush to the elementary school to pick him up, she said, and while he recovered, “it wasn’t ideal.”

Courtney Dang, whose daughter is in fifth grade at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary School in North Portland, said she is preparing for a tough few days in the brick building, which dates back to the 1920s and does not have an updated heating, ventilation and cooling system.

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

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

School districts in the rest of Multnomah County are in similarly difficult situations. In the David Douglas School District, only Menlo Park Elementary School has central air conditioning, although both Cherry Park Elementary and Mill Park Elementary are close to installing it. 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 lack air conditioning in common spaces, such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, hallways and multipurpose rooms, district spokesman Steve Padilla said. And in the Parkrose School District, none of the three elementary schools have modern HVAC systems.

By contrast, suburban districts on the west side tend to be more up-to-date. In the Beaverton School District, for example, all 53 district schools have air-conditioned classrooms, said district spokeswoman Shellie Bailey-Shah. West Tualatin View Elementary School has portable units, but central air conditioning will be installed next summer with funds from the district’s 2022 bond.

Portland city school districts are sharing $50 million in grant money from the city’s Clean Energy Fund, earmarked for upgrades to electrical and heating and cooling systems. But the agreement to distribute the funds was only recently finalized and associated work has yet to begin.

Portland Public Schools will get the lion’s share of that money, nearly $19 million. The David Douglas School District will get $12 million, the Parkrose School District $5.7 million, the Centennial School District $4.6 million and the Reynolds School District $4.1 million.

But it can cost about $10 million to completely overhaul the ventilation and air-conditioning system in an old brick school building, estimated Dan Jung, the chief operating officer for Portland Public Schools.

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