By now, most schools are open for the 2021-2022 school year, and while schools up north worry about heating their school through the winter, here in Dallas, we are more concerned with keeping our schools cool. Whether you are a facilities manager at a public school system or you operate a private school, you need to control your climate. If your AC breaks down, keep everyone in school by calling Rescue Cooling of Dallas for emergency air conditioning services.
Air Conditioning in Schools
Air conditioning did not become common in public and private buildings until the 1950s. Before then, educating children in sweltering buildings posed a serious challenge.
It is a widely accepted fact that “summer vacation” in the U.S. is based on the agricultural calendar. Many people believe now is the time to put an end to summer vacation in schools, since children no longer are needed to help with harvests. However, another reason behind the popularity — or the necessity — of summer vacation was the overbearing heat.
Children in New York City were rarely needed to help bring in crops, yet summer vacation was customary there as well, due to the oppressive heat inside school buildings. No doubt apartments in New York were no less oppressive, but this is why so many residents attempted to spend as much time outside as possible. The well-off residents escaped to the shore, while the others had to stay behind and sit out on the stoop.
Even today, in notoriously hot climates such as those found in India and Africa, in areas where air conditioning (or even buildings) are prohibitively expensive, children learn outside, under the shade of trees.
Poorly Functioning AC Leads to Drop in Test Scores
A U.S. News & World Report story about a National Bureau of Economic Research analysis shows that students don’t do as well in classrooms that are too hot. Hot conditions affect the brain and our ability to think. Your body’s priority is to preserve the function of its most important systems when threatened by outside forces. Your natural inclination in a hot environment is to reduce effort and seek a cooler space, not to do complex math.
It is easier to learn when our bodies are comfortable because there are fewer distractions and we can concentrate better. Heat makes people sleepier and affects their ability to focus attention.
And let us not forget the role of teachers in this equation. They must labor under the same conditions, which makes it harder for them to teach. They are less likely to have the energy to put in the effort necessary to do their jobs. The unpleasant working conditions may also lead to them having shorter tempers and disciplining children more often and more harshly than they would if they had access to emergency air conditioning.
The Economics of Emergency Air Conditioning
Public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, notoriously continue to struggle through classes in August, September, April, May and June with substandard — or no — air conditioning. Because a majority of these schools serve poor children, emergency air conditioning is sadly not a priority.
Sometimes, when temperatures rise dangerously high, students are sent home. This not only prevents them from learning, but it also impacts their access to free meals.
Over the years, some schools in Dallas have suffered the same fate.
Hot Schools Can Make Students and Teachers Sick
The heat in schools with broken air conditioning is not merely inconvenient, it can make students and teachers physically ill. Spending all day in a hot building can cause headaches, nausea, dehydration, rashes, muscle spasms, fainting and more.
Excessive heat in crowded spaces also increases the rate of disease transmission. Before the advent of antibiotics and modern medicine, people believed that diseases such as malaria, smallpox, measles and yellow fever struck in crowded cities due to personal failures on the part of poor people and slum dwellers. Today, we understand that crowded conditions and warm air can contribute to the uncontrolled spread of infectious diseases.
Portable Air Conditioner Rental in Dallas
Get your climate back under control, and call Rescue Cooling for portable air conditioner rental in Dallas. When you call Rescue Cooling for spot coolers for your school, you can rest assured your problem will be taken care of, because we guarantee your spaces will be cool within two hours.
We stock a variety of temporary air conditioning units sized for different spaces. You can get smaller units for individual classrooms and larger units for spaces such as cafeterias and gymnasiums. We provide emergency air conditioning at affordable prices, but if cost is a major concern to you, talk to us about cooling only certain spaces in your school until your HVAC contractor can solve the problem with your air conditioning. That way, you can cluster students into cooled spaces, keeping everyone cool and saving money.
With Rescue Cooling, you don’t have to worry about transporting or setting up your portable air conditioner rental units, because we do it for you. A call to us dispatches our technicians to your location with the equipment you need to cool your space. We set it up for you and ensure it’s working properly before moving on to our next customer.
When you’re finished with your temporary air conditioning rental, just call us and we’ll return to collect it. Many times, we have seen situations in which our customers call us to collect the equipment when their HVAC tech arrives. Unfortunately, fixing a broken AC system is not always quick or easy. It may take all day, or it may take several days. That’s why we advise clients to arrange for portable air conditioner rental pickup only when they are sure their AC has been fixed and is working at full capacity.
Whether you operate a school or another building in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, call Rescue Cooling when you need emergency air conditioning. We serve private residential homes, commercial buildings, restaurants, retail stores, municipal buildings and even industrial buildings. Working in Dallas-Fort Worth without air conditioning is brutal. Don’t even try. Call Rescue Cooling whenever you need temporary AC rental in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.