Extreme, prolonged heat challenging for Winnipeg schools without full air conditioning

Winnipeg schools are trying to keep students and staff cool amid extreme heat in the city, but that can be difficult for those without complete air conditioning.

Three of Kelsey Kuchma's children attend the same elementary school in the Louis Riel School Division, which she says lacks air conditioning. To protect her children's privacy, CBC has agreed not to namethe school.

The heat inside the school leaves her children tired, uncomfortable and cranky, so she's resorted to keeping them home after lunch since Thursday.

"When I'm picking them up, they are flushed in the face," Kuchma told CBC News.

"They're not accomplishing very much when they're in the classroom, because they're not capable of operating like they normally would."

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Winnipeg schools are trying to keep students and staff cool amid extreme heat in the city, but that can be difficult for those without complete air conditioning.

Kuchma says it's not fair for her children to have to stay home and that the situation has upset them too.

"They do want to be in class, they do want to be with their friends," she said. "It's just been very trying for them. There's no winning for them right now."

The Louis Riel School Division told CBC News they have 11 schools that are without air conditioning.

A Shared Health spokesperson told CBC News in an email thatwhile there are no records of children visiting Winnipeg's Children's Hospital in the last week with heat-related illness, their data does not include patient visits where heat was an underlying factor.

But pediatric doctors at Children's Hospital have said they are seeing patients who were impacted by the heat, as well as children who were injured while trying to cool off, according to the spokesperson.

Climate change, funding woes

Environment Canada issued a heat warning for a large swath of the province on Monday, which said a hot, humid air mass is behind daytime highs in the low 30s and overnight lows in the upper teens or low 20s across parts of the Prairies.

The weather agency issued two heat warnings for southern Manitoba last week.

Kuchmasays it's time for the school division to get involved in the situation at her children'sschool, since it has been difficult for themto focus as itgets hotter in the afternoon.

"I'm hoping that the division is just going to do what they need to do to secure the funding to get it done," she said. "This is what our weather is coming to be, so it's time to pivot."

Sandy Nemeth, president of the Manitoba School Boards Association and chair of Louis Riel's board of trustees, says the early onset of extreme, prolonged heat has been a challenge for schools across the province this year.

"It's one thing to navigate three or four days of really hot temperatures. It's quite another when you're in successive weeks," she told CBC News.

The issue will continue to press on for Manitoba schools as effects from climate change impact temperatures, but she says schools are doing everything they can right now to keep kids happy.

"It's very much a collective and concerted effort to ensure that the spaces are as comfortable as possible."

While Manitoba schools do get a certain amount of funding to address infrastructure needs, it's not enough to take care of every school right away, as many are older buildings, she said.

"Over the past number of years, the funding that we've received from government has not kept up with what the needs are and has not kept up with inflation, so there's hard decisions that have to be made."

Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning Wayne Ewasko said in a statement to CBC News that the province has increased funding for K-12 schoolsby $100 million to improve infrastructure needs this year.

The province is also building new schools with modern ventilation systems to decrease the issue for Manitoba students in the future, he said.

Nelia Husack, principal of Victoria-Albert elementary school in central Winnipeg, says it's difficult for her nearly 300 students to learn when they're hot.

"Many of them come from homes [that]don't have air conditioning either. We are trying to help everyone cope," she told CBC News.

It was 30 C inside of the school on Tuesday. While the building is partially air conditioned, Husack says staff have resorted to limiting recess and gym classes to keep children cool.

Attendance levels have not changed during the heat, she said, and only one child has needed staff's support because of the heat so far."We're very watchful. We're very mindful."

The Winnipeg School Division said in an email to CBC News that 27 of their facilities have no air conditioning, while 42 are fully air conditioned and 16 are partly air conditioned.

Nemeth said upgrades to HVAC, ventilation and air conditioning systems for Manitoba schools can cost millions of dollars.

"It is not an insignificant amount of money, but a necessary expense and we'll just keep applying pressure and reminding the government that this is a situation that's not going to go away."