I was checking the temps when we were having the discussion earlier, and it was 93. I’m not trying to be argumentative, but the temps really didn’t look too bad there today. When the article was printed, the predicted high for Minneapolis was 90 or 91, depending on the source. Granted, if it hits 95, I’m really not going to roll my eyes very much at a school closing. I can understand that it wouldn’t be a very productive day if nobody is used to it.
I can remember in 1979 in western NY being shipped off to a school building in Rochester in the middle of June to take some sort of test with everybody else in the area and it being hot enough that a couple kids passed out, and I was dripping sweat onto my paperwork until it was soggy. They packed around a thousand of us into some National Guard armory or some such with no ventilation, no fans, no AC and no cute little bottles of water for 4 hours at a stretch. Lunch was bring your own and we were allowed to go sit outside.
I can remember how miserable schools were pre-air conditioning.
This thread makes me smile.
And I truly don’t remember being miserable. But then I’ve got longer to try to remember than some of you. And I’ve tolerated heat pretty well most of my life.
It just seems like the news makes such a big deal out of weather conditions. Sometimes I wonder if nobody knows how to take care of themselves anymore. It’s the lawyers? Heh.
I DO know that no air-conditioning is going to be tough on the middle-aged teachers. Especially those who are menopausal.
And when you work for the government you must never ask for what you need. Instead always couch it in terms of those whom you are serving. Therefor: the children can’t learn in the heat.
Today was the coolest day of the week. My kids don’t start school til next week, so we went to the local amusement park and ran around - it was hot, but I’ve been there when its hotter.
Minnesota usually has a week or two a year in the high 90s - it usually hits 100 or better for a day or two. Often sometime in August. This year it happened to be this week that was the hottest of the summer - with kids starting school in Minneapolis where the schools are often older and few have air conditioning.
The other issue isn’t that it isn’t productive to have hot kids sitting in desks - its that a lot of parents weren’t going to send their kids - so only half the kids would be there. The parents weren’t thrilled with the early start - the last week of summer before labor day is sort of sacrosanct in Minnesota - last trip to the cabin, the State Fair (which is a HUGE DEAL in this state) - suddenly Minneapolis has the kids in school, its hot, and the parents had a chance to boycott. Or that’s what my Facebook feed looks like was under a lot of this.
We remember. We just want the new generations to themselves taste some of the pain. 
I think people do acclimate though - and we were acclimated to summers without air conditioning. My kids aren’t.
I’ll say it once again, as apparently it’s been lost in the nostalgia: THE WINDOWS DON’T OPEN ANYMORE! They’ve been sealed shut, either as a safety measure (kids falling out, armed intruders/thieves climbing in) or to make the heating system work more efficiently/cheaper in the winter.
Yes, we understand that when you were a kid, after walking to school uphill both ways in six feet of snow, you sat there and sweltered in 9503 degree heat. Got it. Thanks. But you didn’t. Your school didn’t start until after Labor Day, and when it was hot, your teachers opened the windows…or they had the option of doing so.
And, for reasons we don’t understand at all, yes, asthma is much more prevalent in today’s kids than it was in kids 50 years ago. And heat kills far more asthmatics than cold, especially when those asthmatics aren’t acclimated to the heat.
And, for reasons we don’t want to talk about, people are much more likely to sue today than 50 years ago. Avoiding a single heat related lawsuit is worth cancelling school this week…they’ll make up the state aid next spring when they have to use a Weather Day to extend the school year.
Oh, hey! I didn’t realize Minneapolis was in Chicago. Same here. Pretty much because they’re assholes who wanted to punish the teachers for striking last fall.
My daughter’s school was closed today…like the other suburban schools that are starting after Labor Day like normal.
I bet Monday and Tuesday were pretty bad inside those stuffy classrooms. I went to the State Fair on Sunday, and the un-airconditioned buildings were pretty oppressive. It was windy outside, but you just could not cool off…even wet bandanas on the back of the neck stopped working. Having just come back from Denver (What? It’s 92? Really?) I can say that the humidity makes a huge difference. The heat index has been over 100 degrees for much of this week.
Some kids died on a school trip in a mudslide recently here. I don’t blame the schools for being quick on the trigger when it comes to weather-related risks right now.
Since no one has actually presented a cite, here’s the official temps for Minneapolis this month.
96, 97, 96, 92 and 95. With humidity in 70’s or higher. That puts the heat index in the 105+ range.
I invite anyone to sit in an unairconditioned room in those conditions for seven hours without whining.
Also, this thread is evidence that exposure to prolonged heat as a child has a deletorious effect on one’s development, particularly in the politeness region of the brain.
Oh, pshaw. We didn’t have any armed intruders or thieves climbing into our school windows back then.
And nobody cared whether we fell out or not. We just picked ourselves up and limped back inside. Usually got whipped for it.
Oh, it’s a parody!
Sorry, sounds absurd to me. I grew up in Sacramento, my high school didn’t have fans, much less AC, and we didn’t even begin to consider it “hot” until it was well over 100. And if we start talking about the rest of the world…well, I’ve taught in 115 degree heat. You can deal with it.
People die in the heat because they don’t learn how to deal with it- don’t move too much, drink water, and sit in the shade and it won’t kill you.
Nope. A parody would be making mockery of what someone else wrote.
I’d rather think its hyperbole reflecting the teasing here.
In sealed rooms? Or did you have the windows open and maybe a fan running? As WhyNot just pointed out, Minneapolis schools do not have these things.
Could you deal with it in kindergarten? Preschool?
Did you read the thread? That’s sort of the point. Minneapolis doesn’t often get weather this hot during the school year, so the kids (and teachers) are not accustomed to dealing with it. Are you suggesting they should go through inferno-survival training before school starts each year? The schools here are not equipped for extremely hot weather. It makes sense to close the schools for the remainder of this week, whether Aussies approve (;)) or not.
Similar to cars and greenhouses, couldn’t the temperature in the classroom be significantly hotter than the temperature outside? That is the temperature we would need to know.
“Not sitting in a hotbox of a classroom with sun coming through windows that don’t open” seems like a reasonable definition of “dealing with it.”
If an ice storm hits Sacramento, is it absurd to cancel school, or do you expect a population of people with no experience (or equipment for) coping with that sort of weather to just deal with it, because kids in Minnesota don’t even think it’s cold until it’s 20 below zero?
We think it’s cold, we just dress for it. The reason we make fun of people who dress like they’re going to the arctic when it’s 50 degrees out is because if it gets colder, they’ll have nowhere to go. If you pull the parka out in October, you’re screwed in January.