February 15th, 2024
Current school infrastructure in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn have led to more than 150 school closings due to flooding issues in September 2023 alone. The decision on whether or not to close schools during flooding events is something that Mayor Adams and NYC school chancellor David C. Banks have addressed multiple times. “Nothing has impacted the ability for us to safely educate our students in any of those schools.”
Yet on September 29th, 2023 when over eight inches of rainfall was reported in the NYC area, more than 105 school buses reported delays in the morning, resulting in delays for over 250 public schools across the boroughs. Gabriel Fontes, a 10th grade English teacher in Brooklyn, had to wade through muddy water on the first floor of his high school in order to direct students to an upper level classroom to await evacuation. “I didn’t think the conditions were safe so I spent the morning helping students get home.”
While flooding remains a key issue in schools – New York City has long lacked the resilient infrastructure within its public school system to adequately mitigate any climate change issues, particularly in communities of color. Black, brown, and low income children are disproportionately exposed to air pollution, and as most NYC public schools are powered by oil and gas, it results in increased risks during school hours. Boiler maintenance issues and increased greenhouse gas emissions come with these older school buildings, spilling out the equivalent of 154,000 car’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions per year on average.
Mayor Adam’s climate initiative dubbed “Leading the Change” proposes a $540 million dollar effort to install more LED lighting across 800 schools, and will assist in the halting of NO.4 oil [pollutant] by 2030 under city legislation. These clean energy initiatives will cost the city an estimated $4 billion dollars, with half already pledged by the city. Remaining funds will be identified in the coming years, officials say.
However, in order to properly address climate change issues in our public schools, New York City needs to accelerate these current infrastructure initiatives. Leading the change has set aside $1 out of the $4 billion for retrofitting school buildings to move towards all electric energy. But funding has only been approved for five buildings so far, with only three actually starting the construction phase. These schools starting construction had already been proposing for increased retrofitting before funding was approved.
Without subsequent action and planning, NYC public schools will continue to be affected by flooding, heating issues, and evacuations. Public schools already pay $275 million dollars per year on energy related issues, and the costs are set to increase as climate change issues arise. NYC planners need to increase funding for school retrofitting while pushing tangible application processes for all schools, starting with those that are located in low income communities for a more equitable transition into sustainable schools.
“I imagined or fantasized that my son’s childhood would still be largely untouched by climate change. That we were going to get our issues together as a society in time to make life better for him,” said Lauren Phillips, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council and mother. “But my poor kid has had his school flooded and shut down by wildfire smoke, and he’s never even had a normal snow day.”
Bellissimo 