article
June 08, 2018

Campaign to End Overheated Schools and Colleges

Source: NYSUT Workplace Health and Safety
how hot is your classroom?

UPDATE: June 1, 2019

DOWNLOAD THE TEMPERATURE LOG AND POSTER

These are your tools to let your school, your district and your union know what’s going on in your classroom.

classroom heat log

CLASSROOM TEMPERATURE LOG

classroom heat poster

POSTER

For additional resources and to tell YOUR classroom heat story, visit nysut.org/heat.

Let's work together to beat classroom heat.

Dear NYSUT member:

Overheated schools and colleges affect learning, waste energy and cost school employers money.  As bad as it is for students, overheating makes it harder for a teacher to teach and for staff to be productive.  Employees sometimes try to cool their rooms with fans or by opening windows (if they have windows).  This isn’t a real solution to fix the problem of classroom overheating.

Overheating can occur during both warmer months and in winter months where malfunctioning thermostats raise room temperatures.

We need your help to gather data about this problem.  We are asking k-12 and college members across the state to record their (class) room temperatures for a two week period.  This data will be combined to develop a report and recommendations on addressing overheated classrooms.

The downloadable “Room Temperature Record” log has space for you or your students to track classrooms temperatures and the times that they were recorded.  Here are the instructions:

  • record the temperatures twice a day, in the morning in the afternoon
  • please record the temperatures for two weeks (consecutive or nonconsecutive)
  • make sure to include the dates for each day of the week
  • if you have windows, don’t open them before taking the classroom temperature

Thank you for your help in ending overheated schools.

In Solidarity,

Wendy Hord
NYSUT Health and Safety Specialist

Patrick McClellan
State Policy Director, NY League of Conservation Voters