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Ceiling fans don't change the temperature or lower the humidity. You might think a fan could make a warm balmy breeze from a stifling muggy environment but they really don't. They just add more distractions, noise and movement. They work well in large spaces where the interior volume separates into layers. Small classrooms not so much.
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The plan to install air conditioning in class rooms was a response to unusually hot El Nino conditions last year. I generally don't mind the heat, but last summer was a bear.
This year, we are back to relatively normal weather patterns and the summer so far, has been pleasant. There will always be hot, uncomfortable school days, especially with year around scheduling. But there's a difference between trying to study over a two day heat wave, and being able to focus during three months of unrelenting heat.
I wouldn't mind shelving the whole AC plan for a few years, especially now that we've entered a cooler La Nina phase.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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I think AC in every classroom is long overdue, should have been installed all along, and to ask students to concentrate to the best of their ability without providing a comfortable environment to do so is a serious short coming on the part of the DOE.
Further, I believe, based on worldwide reports, that El Nino accounted for only a small amount of the larger increases in temperatures last year, and that we are not going to see as far a drop back to what we might have called normal in the past as one would hope with this now starting La Nina. About that you might want to read:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...are_btn_fb
Keep in mind that the legislature is, verging on criminally imo, in the rears regarding supporting our DOE, and in turn all the children of Hawaii. This AC fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg and that to really get with the program there would need to be a massive change in perspective by our law makers. A massive investment, a real acknowledgement that education is a first priority rather than the afterthought they make it.
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The enduring fact that Hawaii failed to blanket every single municipal building, police and fire station, school, etc with solar panels in order to run A/C is a head scratcher for sure.
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I think AC in every classroom is long overdue...
The cost will come out of the state budget, possibly the DOE budget. Where would you cut expenses so the keiki can have AC, because even though it's cooler now the earth is slowly getting warmer? It's not going to be installed without an immediate impact to other expenditures.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Air conditioning the classrooms is like putting lipstick on a pig. We could add any number of similar amenities, and it wouldn't change the substandard results of our underperforming, very expensive educational system. A revolutionary change in the cultural values of both consumers and the governing bureaucracy is the only thing that might improve things. I'm not holding my breath on either of those.
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quote:
Originally posted by Chunkster
Air conditioning the classrooms is like putting lipstick on a pig. We could add any number of similar amenities, and it wouldn't change the substandard results of our underperforming, very expensive educational system. A revolutionary change in the cultural values of both consumers and the governing bureaucracy is the only thing that might improve things. I'm not holding my breath on either of those.
Agreed. But making children labor in sweltering conditions seems cruel to me.