AFT school bus drivers in Louisiana conducted a study this month to gauge the dangerously hot conditions in their buses. Over a three-day period starting Aug. 14, the first day of school, the Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel in Shreveport, La., measured the temperature and humidity ranges inside their buses three times a day.

What they found: Each day, temperatures in the buses spiked well over 100 degrees in the afternoon. The top reading was 116 degrees. Heat that oppressive causes headaches, nausea and light-headedness.

The Caddo study attracted media coverage and the local union presented its findings to the school board, which plans to take up the issue in September. Caddo federation president Jackie Lansdale, speaking at a news conference, said the union wants the district to push back the start of school to a reasonable date. In neighboring Bossier Parish, home of the Bossier Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, also an AFT affiliate, the school year started even earlier, on Aug. 8.

The main reason school officials keep setting the calendar earlier, Lansdale explains, is to get a jump on instructional time before high-stakes testing in March.

"We're forced to do this for the convenience of the bureaucrats," she says. "We're putting their convenience over the safety of the children we're transporting. If you did this to a dog, you'd be cited for cruelty."

The district is slowly replacing its fleet with air-conditioned buses, but so far, only about one in five school buses have air conditioning.

Besides restricting how early in the summer school can reopen, Lansdale sees other possible remedies, including using temporary air conditioners in the buses; training drivers how to recognize and tend to children's heat-related distress; and letting drivers cool off inside schools instead of sweltering in idling buses.

Failing all that, she says that when temperatures near 100 degrees are forecast for the next day, the district should plan for a noon dismissal to avoid the worst of the heat, just as school systems up north accommodate for snow.

"It's time for the tail to quit wagging the dog on this one," Lansdale says. "It just doesn't make sense."

August 28, 2007