Too hot for school? PSD announces criteria on which the decision will be made

With the new school year beginning in a month that typically sees Colorado’s highest daily temperatures, the Poudre School District has created a set of criteria to determine whether elementary and middle school students will be dismissed two hours early or classes canceled entirely due to excessive heat.

Thirty-two of the district’s 49 non-charter schools do not have air conditioning or other adequate cooling systems, Superintendent Brian Kingsley said at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.

As a result, the buildings sometimes become “too hot to provide a safe and healthy learning environment,” according to an email the district sent to students, staff and families on Wednesday.

Installing air conditioning in all PSD schools without this equipment would cost the district $167 million to $268 million, an outside contractor said last year when conducting an assessment of each building.

Here’s what students, families and staff need to know:

What triggers will lead to consideration of heat-related early releases or closures?

If one or more of the following conditions are met, the district will consider a two-hour early dismissal or a full school closure, according to the email:

The Heat & Health Tracker for Larimer County displays high or extreme risk levels of heat-related impacts for individuals, represented by red and magenta, respectively, on the color-coded scale.
The NWS forecast for zip code 80521 shows a high temperature of over 95 degrees Fahrenheit
The NWS forecast for zip code 80521 showed high temperatures of 90 degrees or more for three consecutive days

Whenever possible, PSD will notify families and staff 12 to 24 hours in advance of a closure or early release, Kingsley said.

PSD administrative offices would remain open during early layoffs or heat-related closures, he said.

Which schools are subject to early dismissals and closures?

All PSD preschools, elementary schools and middle schools would be affected except Poudre Global Academy, the three mountain elementary schools in Livermore, Red Feather Lakes and Stove Prairie, and Poudre Global Academy, even those with air conditioning. Also affected would be Polaris Expeditionary Learning School, Centennial High School and Poudre Community Academy.

More: Students report fewer suicidal thoughts and self-harm in recent Healthy Kids survey

The district’s four comprehensive schools and two combined middle schools have air conditioning and would remain operational during heat-related early school closures or school closures, Kingsley said. Mountain Elementary Schools, Poudre Global Academy and Transitions Pathways programs for 18- to 21-year-olds would also remain operational.

Although some of the affected elementary and middle schools have air conditioning, they share bus routes and other resources with schools without air conditioning and would therefore have to follow the same schedules.

What happens if heat is released prematurely?

Classes start at the usual time.
Breakfast and lunch are served.
Excursions planned for the afternoon have been cancelled.
Students who ride the bus can continue to do so and will be dropped off at their regular stops two hours earlier than usual.
Morning classes will take place at the usual times, afternoon classes will be cancelled. Full-day classes will end two hours earlier.
At these schools, extracurricular activities, including sports training and competitions, will be cancelled.

What happens if schools are closed because of heat?

These schools will be closed.
All extracurricular activities, including sports training and competitions, will be cancelled.

What happens at schools that are not affected by early school closings and heat-related closures?

School operations are running normally.
Extracurricular activities, including athletics, for high school students will continue, while those for middle school students will be canceled.

More: Questions and answers with Brian Kingsley, Superintendent of the Poudre School District

What is being done to alleviate the heat in schools without air conditioning?

PSD operates building ventilation systems at night to move cooler air through those schools and fan systems in classrooms and buildings to mitigate heat, the email said. But school safety protocols limit the circulation of outside air during school hours, when window ventilation is limited and doors must be closed.

The district continues to consider changes to the school calendar.

Why isn’t the start of school postponed until after Labor Day?

There are several reasons why the school year in PSD and most other Colorado school districts begins in August rather than after Labor Day, when daytime temperatures are generally cooler.

In fact, the PSD School Board heard a presentation on possible calendar changes during the dinner session before its regular business meeting Tuesday night.

The greatest obstacles exist at the high school level due to concurrent courses for which students receive college credit and national and international testing schedules for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs.

About 4,000 of PSD’s 9,856 high school students took courses that earn them college credit last year, Assistant Principal Julie Chaplain told the school board. The partnership agreements under which those courses are offered require the high schools to follow a similar academic schedule as their partner colleges — primarily Front Range and Aims Community Colleges, Community College of Aurora and Metropolitan State University of Denver.

A later start to the school year would also reduce the amount of instructional time available for students to complete the curriculum needed to pass the AP and IB tests, she said.

PSD is currently studying the possibility of introducing different schedules for its primary and middle schools than for its secondary schools, meaning that the school year would start and end two weeks later. However, to do this, the institute would need to obtain the agreement of the various employee organisations in the next round of contract negotiations.

Kingsley and several school board members stressed that such a move would also entail significant costs, as it would extend the school year by another four weeks for many transportation, janitorial and food service workers.

The school board has asked Chaplain and the calendar committee she oversees to solicit feedback and gather additional information on this option to determine whether it should be considered in future years.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at [email protected], x.com/KellyLyell And facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.