With much of the Bay Area under a heat advisory through Thursday evening, many Oakland students are spending the school day in rooms with no way to cool down.
About 83% of Oakland Unified School District facilities have no cooling, affecting more than 2,000 classrooms, KALW reported. Preston Thomas, the district's chief systems and services officer, told the station that this "creates tremendous challenges during the Heat Advisories."
What the district is doing
The school board has set aside $12 million for heat relief: $8 million in Measure Y bond money, plus another $4 million approved in June, according to the district. The plan comes in three tiers. This summer brought quick fixes such as reflective window film at about 30 priority sites, cool roof coatings, shade structures, trees and asphalt removal. Pilots planned for 2026 and 2027 include a cooling room on each campus, ceiling fans, nighttime ventilation and wiring for portable air conditioners in the hottest classrooms. Full HVAC upgrades are slated for 2027 and beyond, folded into major modernization projects at schools including Garfield, Roosevelt, McLymonds and Fremont.
As of late August, the district counted 26 cooling rooms, 1,760 window films and seven cool roofs installed or underway. It is also applying for a state Extreme Heat Community Resilience Program grant, with the full application due Oct. 13.
Mixed results on the ground
At Chabot Elementary in Rockridge, which got window film, principal Carol Guggino told KALW that a couple of teachers said their rooms were cooler, but most said the film hadn't made much difference. What helped was air conditioning: after a brutal week last fall, the PTA bought portable AC units for about $16,000. This year, Guggino said, the old building blows fuses when every unit runs at once, so teachers take turns. When rooms are hot, she said, students "can't focus."
Data first
Using a state CalSHAPE grant, the district has installed small wall sensors in every classroom at 83 schools. They record temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels every 15 minutes, the district says, though they do not detect smoke, gas or carbon monoxide. Officials plan to use the readings to decide which schools get cooling projects first, alongside factors such as student age, sun exposure and neighborhood heat.
"This is a complex problem and will take years to address," Thomas wrote to KALW. A public dashboard of the classroom data is expected to launch this week.