School districts race to invest in cooling solutions as classrooms and playgrounds heat up

Ylenia Aguilar raised her sons in Arizona, so they’re no strangers to scorching heat.

She remembers “seeing soccer kids and my own children pass out and faint from, you know, heat-related illnesses,” she said. “It was seeing my sons dehydrated.”

Schools across the U.S. are carpeted in heat-absorbing asphalt and lack shade. The buildings were often made with materials that radiated heat into indoor spaces. Kids are more vulnerable to heat illness than adults, and extreme temperatures affect learning, performance and concentration. Heat-related school closures are becoming more frequent.

The burden of extreme heat is not felt equally. Low-income neighborhoods and communities of color can be as much as 7 F (3.9 C) hotter than richer and whiter neighborhoods.

Yet there are well-known ways to cool down schools and neighborhoods.

In 2022, students at a school near Atlanta pointed thermometers onto their basketball court and got a reading of 105 F (about 40.5 C). A roofing manufacturer donated a solar-reflective coating and helped them paint it on. They took another reading. This time it was 95 F (35 C).

Paved surfaces get really hot in the sun. They absorb solar energy and slowly re-radiate it out as heat, increasing air temperatures by as much as 7 F (3.9 C).

Cooling playgrounds and roads by making them more reflective is not new, but interest has been growing along with more understanding of the way the accumulation can affect neighborhoods, known as urban heat islands, said Daniel Metzger, a fellow at Columbia Law School.

The Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School recently had that same cool surface painted on their parking lot. Both times, the coatings and labor were donated. Without that, the school would have had to raise funds, said Scott Starowicz, the school’s co-founder and chief financial officer.

East of Los Angeles, roofs across the Chaffey Joint Union High School District once reached 140 F (60 C). Warm roofs mean upper-floor classrooms could get hot, which would affect a lot of Chaffey's students, nearly 65% of who are Latino or Hispanic.

Chaffey has spent $11.4 million in bond money and maintenance funds to convert asphalt shingle roofs to white cool roofing since 2017.

These roofs — as well as window films, paints and other technologies — reflect part of the incoming solar radiation away from a building, rather than allowing it to transfer inside as heat. These are some of the easiest and least costly actions a district can take.

Experts agree cool roofing lowers indoor temperature and reduces the need for AC.

The district has also invested in steel shade structures, trees and temperature devices to monitor heat stress.

On hot days, Sharon Gamson Danks remembers seeing her kids and their peers sitting in the shade along the edges of their school building.

More schools are tearing out hot asphalt, turf or rubber mats in favor of grass, gardens, mulch or trees. Experts say trees are one of the best ways to cool things down.

At Parkway Elementary in Sacramento, trees replaced turf this summer thanks to a grant. The project is part of a California schoolyard forests effort to increase tree canopy in public schools, especially in underserved communities.

For the hottest schools, these solutions are often out of reach.

Federal agencies offer grants, but they often don’t cover the full cost, and schools sometimes don’t have the staff to apply for and manage grants. Increased maintenance costs are also a concern.

Relying on grant money “can completely exacerbate the haves and the have-nots” when it comes to reducing climate change and adapting to its harms, said UCLA professor V. Kelly Turner.

Many believe schools shouldn’t be left on their own. Every individual solution makes a difference, said Greg Kats of the Smart Surfaces Coalition. But combining efforts with a local government or neighborhood means schools can be even more comfortable, he said.

“It’s just sort of integration, right, of different strategies over a larger geographic area,” he added. “You’re really sort of transforming the school environment.”

In Phoenix, Aguilar’s efforts improved Osborn Elementary District, but the work is ongoing. It recently got money to plant more trees and add more shade.

Aguilar understood that it would only get hotter, she said. “I knew that we needed to take action.”

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Ronnie Jefferies paints the parking lot at Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School to help cool it by making it more reflective, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Mableton, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Ronnie Jefferies works on the parking lot at Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School where it is being repainted to help cool it by making it more reflective, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Mableton, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Ronnie Jefferies works on the parking lot at Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School where it is being repainted to help cool it by making it more reflective, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Mableton, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

School districts race to invest in cooling solutions as classrooms and playgrounds heat up

School districts race to invest in cooling solutions as classrooms and playgrounds heat up

Ronnie Jefferies paints the parking lot at Science, Arts and Entrepreneurship School to help cool it by making it more reflective, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Mableton, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting near their records Monday as Wall Street gears up for the most anticipated meeting of the Federal Reserve in years.

The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in afternoon trading after flitting between gains and losses earlier in the morning. It's sitting just 0.8% below its all-time high set in July.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 134 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:51 p.m. Eastern time, after climbing above its record closing high earlier in the day. The Nasdaq composite was down 0.9%.

Oracle rose 6.2% to help lead the market, continuing a strong run that began last week with a better-than-expected profit report. Alcoa also jumped 8% after saying it would sell its ownership stake in a Saudi Arabian joint venture to Saudi Arabian Mining Co. for $950 million in stock and $150 million in cash. But drops for some influential Big Tech stocks dragged on indexes, including declines of 3.1% for Apple and 2.5% for Nvidia.

Treasury yields eased in the bond market ahead of what’s expected to be the week’s main event. On Wednesday, the widespread expectation is for the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years to deliver some relief to the economy.

The only question is by how much the Fed will cut. Traders are shifting more bets toward a larger-than-usual move of half a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. They’re anticipating a 59% chance the Fed will go beyond the more traditional cut of a quarter of a percentage point. That’s up from 50% on Friday and just 30% a week ago.

The difference between a half-point cut and a quarter may sound academic, but it can have far-ranging effects. While lowering rates relieves pressure on the economy, it can also give inflation more fuel.

The Federal Reserve has been keeping its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stifle high inflation. With inflation having eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the Fed has said it can turn more focus to bolstering the slowing job market and economy. Some critics say it may be moving too late, increasing the risk of a possible recession.

A Fed cut of half a percentage point would likely be the best case for the stock market in the very short term, according to Michael Wilson and other strategists at Morgan Stanley. But that's only if the Fed can convince investors it's not getting forced into a bigger-than-usual cut because of worries about a recession, among other factors.

Still, the more important thing for where stocks are heading over the next three to six months will be how well the job market holds up, according to Wilson. If employment weakens, stocks could fall regardless of whether the Fed cuts by half or a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.63% from 3.66% late Friday. The two-year yield, which moves more closely with expectations for the Fed, eased to 3.55% from 3.59%.

That was despite a report in the morning showing manufacturing in New York state returned to growth in September. That surprised economists, who were expecting another month of contraction for an area of the economy that’s been hit hard by high interest rates.

On Wall Street, Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises rose 8.5% after it said a U.S. judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the company, one based on allegations by a research firm that looks for financial irregularities and tries to profit when the stock prices fall.

Fertilizer producer Mosaic fell 4.9% after it said electrical equipment failures at mines and Hurricane Francine will reduce its production of potash and phosphate in the current quarter.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.3% after data released over the weekend showed China’s economy slowed further in August.

Markets in Japan, mainland China and South Korea were closed for holidays.

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

FILE - The American flag hangs from the front of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 10, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm in Tokyo, on Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)