AP: "'Heat Days' Become More Common in Sweaty Schools"

Seems to me sitting in a sweltering classroom must have been pretty commonplace when "we" were kids, although I'm having a hard time remembering...

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Yes, I had to walk five miles to school all uphill (uphill on the way home too) and then sit in the sweltering heat. Kids today...

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"They don't call me Colonel because I'm some dumb a$$ army guy" Colonel Homer J. Simpson

the school years have gotten longer.

the students have gotten larger.

weather seems more volatile.

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colonel panic
Yes, I had to walk five miles to school in the snow all uphill (uphill on the way home too) and then sit in the sweltering heat. Kids today...

Fixed.

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It is what it is.

Yes, I had to endure hot schools in the Northern Virginia suburbs outside of D.C.

At least they were smart enough back then to not start school until after Labor Day.

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colonel panic
Yes, I had to walk five miles to school all uphill (uphill on the way home too) and then sit in the sweltering heat. Kids today...

why did your parents move the house further up the hill during the day?

Yes... but around here, "high" temperatures means mid 70's, so it really doesn't count in the way you're asking.
Didn't use the heat near so much as we do here in the winter though.

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Paul F.
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Eureka, CA

Let me recall...
I went to school in Florida
The schools had no air conditioning
only one side of the classroom had windows (so no cross breeze)
School started the last week of August

So yes, I had to endure high temps. But I don't recall it being an issue at the time.

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freeradical
Yes, I had to endure hot schools in the Northern Virginia suburbs outside of D.C.
Me too and if I recall correctly we never got out {Wakefield High} early because of the heat.

At least they were smart enough back then to not start school until after Labor Day.

Apparently they still are "smart enough" - [www.apsva.us]

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RonT
Apparently they still are "smart enough" - [www.apsva.us]

[/quote]

Not around here they aren't...
Have to preserve that "Presidents Week" and "Fall Break (week)" at Thanksgiving.

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Paul F.
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
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Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
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Eureka, CA

No air conditioning, and sometimes a heat wave in the fall that could get to 105 or higher, and the school had a dress code that did not allow students to wear shorts. I notice that the dress codes were relaxed some years later, so the F1 generation often went to school in shorts on hot days. The worst day was doing kickoff and punt practices in 106 degrees, and a policy back then where there were no water breaks during practice. The next day, the state authority cancelled every football game due to the danger of the heat. This is one reason I've always felt that coaches are a danger to the public health. Back in those days, there were numerous deaths in high school football, and most, I assume, were due to dehydration and the resulting heart problems. (A quick check of statistics shows that the death rate in high school football in the 1960s was about 2 per 100,000 players, and that the rate has dropped tenfold in recent years -- I assume that this is the result of water breaks, better control over player health, and perhaps better protective equipment and rules protecting against spinal injuries.)

Only in the middle of the winter when they would crank up the heat. Those were the days of cheaper energy.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

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Ombligo
... So yes, I had to endure high temps. But I don't recall it being an issue at the time.

But I also don't remember anyone learning much of anything as we soaked our polyester shirts and dripped onto our notebooks...

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Black
Did you have to endure high temperatures in classrooms as a kid?

Yes, and it made me what I am today!

Our schools had amazingly high ceilings and numerous, huge windows. We started after Labor Day, and while it was warm, I don't remember this intense heat we have experienced more recently. During the energy crisis, most of the schools with big windows had them replaced with much smaller windows to preserve the heat in the winter. It works for the summer too.

One big difference was that we had nowhere to go that was air conditioned. Most of us in those days had no air conditioners at home, so why dismiss? Now, we are accustomed to ac, and we miss it when we don't have it.

And gnats. One kid used to see how many he could kill and then fill his pencil tray with the carcasses. Nice, huh?
Went to school mostly in the Deep South, so yes, it was hot as hell sometimes, with no air conditioning.
I swear one school I went to looked like it must have survived the civil war burning rampage of Sherman. Talk about old. Also went to a brand new school that did have air conditioning, boy was that a nice upgrade.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

Yes. This was in the 80s and 90s.

We had several 'heat days' built into the schedule and would have days off (just like snow days).

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""Did you have to endure high temperatures in classrooms as a kid?""

Yes.
Looked forward to the very hot days as the girls wore less and less.
I liked less and less.
The more less and less the better.

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Yes, the end of our school year was in the third or fourth week of June. Sometimes that would coincide with an early summer heat wave. It was a bit more tolerable in the older schools with the high windows that could be opened top or bottom and set up a good cross breeze. No air conditioning in any of the classrooms I was in.

Vague memory coming back to me now of having to raise your hand, wait to be called on, and asking if you could open a window....
very vague...
Also remembering ancient floor fans.... just took 'em for granted.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2013 06:05PM by Black.

Yes. We were young and very accommodating to temperature extremes. I recall my first grade teacher dud look like she was melting. We whispered wicked witch of the west jokes at each other.

On hot days we didn't have to wear our ties.

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I was also talking to a friend who said she had to get her car to the shop to fix the AC that broke because her kids were miserable in the car without AC! I told her we rolled down the windows...

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iaJim
Our schools had amazingly high ceilings and numerous, huge windows. We started after Labor Day, and while it was warm, I don't remember this intense heat we have experienced more recently. During the energy crisis, most of the schools with big windows had them replaced with much smaller windows to preserve the heat in the winter. It works for the summer too.

One big difference was that we had nowhere to go that was air conditioned. Most of us in those days had no air conditioners at home, so why dismiss? Now, we are accustomed to ac, and we miss it when we don't have it.

bingo on the AC issue! same here.

Also, the fact about the old buildings cannot be dismissed. you will sweat your butt off in the new schools, with their short ceiling heights, few windows and lack of cross-ventilated layout.

it really was better back in the day~!

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Mischievous and Deceitful
Chicanerous and Deplorable

I've been informed by Pops that when he was a kid, the approaching glaciation kept the temps down during the school year.

Been thinking about this all day - it bothered me that I couldn't remember, but it's coming back in bits.

I was in california - of course it got hot.

As I recall, in both socal and norcal ALL public schools were built with very high ceilings and a row of windows just below the ceiling. There was a latch that was opened via a long pole with a brass fixture at the end that fit into a slot in the latch to unlatch the window and it would open downward with light chains to keep the window open at about a 50º angle.

Teacher's pet got to use the thing to open the windows. If you weren't careful, you could easily put the pole through the glass.

We were in ancient buildings and being sweaty and stinky was more socially acceptable.

There was no AC in my grade school or high school. It must have gotten warm toward summer and in early fall, but I don't recall being horribly uncomfortable.

There was no AC in subway cars or buses in NYC when I first got here. THAT was uncomfortable.

isn't the heat directly proportional to the hotness of the teacher.........???

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Well, summer's hotter in most places than it used to be. And in cities, the urban heat island effect maybe hasn't gotten worse, but it has spread. So a couple degrees warmer than usual, another 5-8 degrees from the heat island, plus starting earlier in August, yeah, it would suck.

We just sucked it up.

I don't really remember, but given that I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley during the '70s and '80s, I would have to say that it was very likely.

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It is what it is.

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hal
Been thinking about this all day - it bothered me that I couldn't remember, but it's coming back in bits.

I was in california - of course it got hot.

As I recall, in both socal and norcal ALL public schools were built with very high ceilings and a row of windows just below the ceiling. There was a latch that was opened via a long pole with a brass fixture at the end that fit into a slot in the latch to unlatch the window and it would open downward with light chains to keep the window open at about a 50º angle.

Teacher's pet got to use the thing to open the windows. If you weren't careful, you could easily put the pole through the glass.

In California, there were variations. The High School that I went to was row after row of identical classrooms; the outer walls were mostly fixed glass, and there was little insulation and no air conditioning. Ventilation was provided by a window over the door, and a roof vent. In the winter, the roofs leaked.
The school was built at the start of the baby boom, and as the boom bulged through the sixties, additional rows were added. Once the seventies commenced, other than the occasional standalone gym or arts room, building ceased.

I went there last spring, and the school looked pretty much the same, with one glaring difference: each room in each row now had a roof air conditioner. The school is now used year-round, so the air conditioners see a lot of use as well.
I talked to a neighbor kid who just graduated; the school is as much a joke to him now, as it was to me four decades ago. The air conditioning does sometimes work, and in the winter, the roofs still leak.

Eustace

Nope. However, I walked to school through slush, sleet and snow, and when I got there the classrooms were still pretty dang cold since they were Nissen (Quonset) huts left over from the old WWII RAF airfield that was converted into a school. Nothing like shivering all day in school and then having to walk through the snow to get home at the end of the day. Heat seems like a luxury.

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They were transoms Hal. Our old elementary school in the valley (1932 or so) had them.
No air until Valley College in the "new" buildings.
I basically went through schools with temp bungalows. It was a massive growing time in the San Fernando Valley.
For a look at Birmingham High which wasa converted Army rehab hospital, you can watch "The Men" (1950) with Marlon Brando (first film) and Jack Webb of "Dragnet"fame. Good flick. The school had all the wheel entries to each hall and room. Sun porches outside each classroom. No air anywhere.

All the schools I went to were built just after the mining and resultant population boom here in Birmingham (4 in 1925, 1 in 1931), and all of them used a very similar design, probably by the same architect: Classrooms with 12 to 15 foot high ceilings; huge, wall-to-wall rows of double-hung windows on one wall that opened at the top and the bottom; transoms that opened into the hallways over the classroom doors; no air conditioning except in the principal's office; and heat via cast-iron radiators on the outside wall underneath the windows. I don't remember the heat in the spring or fall being bad at all except in a drowsy, I'd-so-rather-be-outside-than-stuck-in-this-boring-classroom kind of way. When the heat in the classrooms was bad was during the dead of winter because some of the classroom radiators were permanently stuck on the "wide open" setting and the teacher would have to open the windows just to keep us students from passing out from the heat.

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hal
There was a latch that was opened via a long pole with a brass fixture at the end that fit into a slot in the latch to unlatch the window and it would open downward with light chains to keep the window open at about a 50º angle.

Teacher's pet got to use the thing to open the windows. If you weren't careful, you could easily put the pole through the glass.

That brings back memories, I remember the "pole" from my elementary school, which had no A/C. The pole reminded me of a harpoon.

That school was built in 1958 and I attended in the 1960s, and the last time I was visiting my parents I walked by it and noticed that there were a few window A/C units in it. I have some vague memories of high temperatures in the winter, there always problems with "the radiators".

I can't recall what my Junior High had.

My High School, built in the late 1960s I'm pretty sure had A/C, from what I recall, from it's design, there were a lot of rooms that had no windows.

In college there were some really old lecture halls that had no A/C, but newer ones had it, it all seemed to be based on when it was built.

Yep, 3rd floor after lunch was toasty - no shorts allowed - one year some of the boys borrowed their sisters' sundresses & wore those in protest.

Interestingly that school had a crude form of A/C for 20 years after it was built - load large blocks of ice in the basement and have huge fans on the roof draw air through the classrooms.

During WWII they couldn't get parts so the system was abandoned.