LETTER: Broken A/C systems in local schools

The Clark County School District’s half-hearted response to concerns about broken air conditioning in schools made me hot under the collar (Sept. 8 Review-Journal). The district should treat this situation with more urgency.

First graders should never have to spend two August days in a classroom without working air conditioning. Children are more susceptible to heat-related illness, and they often cannot respond to heat dangers without adult assistance. Heat causes problems with learning, attention, mood and anger management.

We could transform our schools into hubs of clean energy and resilience to prepare for increased heat in coming years. Two recent federal bills offer funding opportunities for the district to improve its HVAC infrastructure and adopt comfortable, efficient and resilient technologies such as heat pumps. The 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act provides $47 billion in grant opportunities to improve infrastructure and climate resilience. The Inflation Reduction Act provides numerous funding options for state and local governments, as well as block grants for climate resiliency.

Children comprise just under half of cases of heat-related illness and about 7 percent of heat-related deaths in the United States each year. The school district should make sure that none of those cases occur in our schools.