UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

This brief highlights some, but not all, of what may be needed to address heat in schools. It is not intended to be fully comprehensive. For example, it is outside the scope of this document to focus on labor-related actions. Additionally, we focus on actions that can be taken at the state level. Yet we recognize the critical role of school districts and schools to address heat. A focus on the local level, involving interviews with school employees, could be the subject of a separate paper on heat and schools. Addressing extreme heat is only one piece of making schools more climate resilient. Our heat-specific action areas fit into a broader landscape of work for climate-resilient schools. To illustrate, the Climate Ready Schools Coalition calls for increased funding and a “Master Plan for Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Schools” to identify and guide a wider set of investments to promote equity, health and climate mitigation alike in schools.