Extreme heat causes school leaders to rethink schedules

Flames and black smoke quickly engulfed the playground equipment. Fortunately, school hadn’t started for the 62,000-student Arlington Independent School District outside Fort Worth, and the playground was empty. School employees noticed the blaze and called for help.

The spontaneous combustion at Anderson Elementary was one of the stranger consequences of the record-breaking heat wave that swept much of the country this summer.

In Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and other cities, soaring temperatures forced school officials to send students home early. A power surge knocked out air-conditioning in a Memphis elementary school, forcing it to close.

In Greenville, S.C., where the temperature hit 102 on Aug. 21, county schools cancelled recess for two days, according to the Greenville News. In neighboring Greer, the average temperature for August (as of Aug. 28) was 85.1 degrees, a National Weather Service official said. That’s nearly two degrees higher than the hottest month on record for the region  -- July 1993, when the average was 83.3.

“Right now, we are absolutely smokin’ that record,” said meteorologist Bryan McAvoy.

The hot weather was especially tough on high school football players, and many schools avoided practice during the midday heat.

In early August, a Mississippi judge, concerned about the health effects of the extreme heat, ruled schools could not hold sports and band practices outside, the Associated Press reported. However, the ruling, which angered coaches and school officials, was vacated on Aug. 10 by the Mississippi Supreme Court. The high court noted that no one had petitioned the judge to suspend practice.

Three high school athletes have died this summer of what appear to be heat-related causes, said Fred Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition, a North Carolina cross-country runner, who collapsed during a meet in late August, was recovering Aug. 30 at Raleigh hospital several days after the incident.

“He started and he didn’t return,” Mueller said. After 30 minutes coaches began searching for him. “He collapsed in a nurse’s front yard, fortunately,” Mueller said, and she iced him down until help arrived.

This year, the Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools on the Georgia coast are starting school after Labor Day to avoid the intense August heat. The school board made the decision during the last school year, and so far, Savannah-Chatham is the only Georgia district to do so -- but that could change.

“We have been contacted by [eight to 10] other school districts in Georgia who are watching us very closely,” said district spokesman Bucky Burnsed.

One district exploring that move is the 32,000-student Muscogee County Public Schools near Columbus, Ga. Fifteen out of about 4,000 of the district’s window air conditioners failed on the first day of school.

While that is not excessive, it was enough to get board members thinking about the human and monetary costs of starting school in mid-August.

The day school started the temperature was 98. The next day, it soared to 102.

Board member Cathy Williams, who favors moving the start of school to after Labor Day, said she worried about students and PE teachers exercising in gymnasiums, some of which are not air-conditioned.

“The heat index in these gyms is exceeding 104, 105, and we have teachers in there all day, teaching those classes,” Williams said.

Williams said she favored changing the start date of school and renovating the gyms -- in that order.

“Let’s get the teachers and students out of these gyms in August,” she said. “And next, lets get the gyms air-conditioned.”

The spontaneous playground fire in Texas was as much the result of rain as heat,” said Veronica Sopher, spokesperson for the Arlington school district.

The wood chip playground had been saturated by rainstorms earlier in the summer, causing the material to partially decompose and get dangerously hot, much like a backyard compost pile that isn’t turned regularly. The 98-degree heat on Aug. 8 was all it needed to spontaneously ignite.

“It’s a combination” of the rain and heat, Sopher said. “The fire department explained it as a perfect storm.”

School officials in Arlington speculated that three other playground fires this summer were also caused by spontaneous combustion, Sopher said, and a fourth was probably caused by arson.