Over half of Hamilton schools aren’t air conditioned, so what is being done?

Hamilton’s public school board says a lack of funding from the provincial government is preventing it from properly air-conditioning its schools. Currently, more than half of Hamilton’s public schools are not fully cooled.

The reason, according to the school board, is that some of the schools are old and the solution won’t be cheap.

“We’re looking at about 80-million to 100-million dollars to put full air conditioning across all of our schools,” Maria Felix Miller, Chair of HWDSB says.

The board says a few other things take priority over air conditioning, a big one being accessibility. It says the province is not giving them enough funding to fix the cooling problem right now.

“We want to work together to figure out… can we begin to improve those percentages, can we begin to tackle some of that big list, but the reality is, unless we get a significant investment from the ministry of education, the amount we’ll be able to do on a year to year basis is quite limited,” she says.

Frank Panabaker Elementary School in Ancaster is one of three schools that have as little as 5 per cent AC coverage. The Canadian Environmental Law Association says that needs to change.

“Currently under the Education Act and then regulations and guidance that flows from that act, there isn’t guidance on a maximum indoor temperature for classrooms,”  Jacqueline Wilson, a lawyer with the Canadian Environmental Law Association says.

“We’re calling for a maximum of 26 degrees celsius.”

The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE) agrees, saying heat can not only affect a student’s health, but their learning as well.

“Research shows that heat is actually affecting brain function, so things like cognitive processing, memory, attention, these are all being shown to be caused by exposure to heat,” Erica Phipps, Executive Director of CPHE says.

READ MORE: Ford announces $70M in support for Ontario workers affected by tariffs