To the Editor:

I am writing to address an important issue in certain schools in the Newtown school district. I am an eighth grader at the Newtown Middle School, and the first couple weeks have been almost unbearably hot because there is no air conditioning in our classrooms. The same is true for Middle Gate School and Hawley Elementary School. I know that our district has been trying to help by making half-days, but I have a better solution.

As a student, I think the most important time of the school year is the first week or two because you are building a relationship with your teachers and fellow classmates who you will be learning with all year. If that time is disrupted by half days, it is harder to connect. Not only does this affect the schools without air conditioning, the entire district is getting half-days, and that disrupts their learning. I know it must be hard to make these calls because it affects the whole district, but we wouldn’t have to make these calls if all the schools had air conditioning. Also, it is hard for the parents to prepare for the half-days because they have to work.

Some might say that the heat is only a couple days of the school year, but Joe Furey, a meteorologist from WTNH, says that there were 31 days of 90 degrees or hotter at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut this year. Every year for four years, records for hottest years in Connecticut have been broken, and studies show that it is only going to get hotter.

It is very uncomfortable being in the heat. It makes people feel sick, tired, and dizzy. It is really not nice to be in a hot building for three to seven hours, but it is manageable as long as you can get into air conditioning right after that. That brings me to another point.

The buses are very packed, and every seat needs to have two people in them. That is a lot of hot people in one space. My ninth grade brother, who is in the [air-conditioned] high school all day, doesn’t think that the buses are that bad; I disagree with him every time. Then I figured it out. When he gets on the bus, he is not hot already because he was in AC, whereas the middle schoolers are hot coming onto the bus. The high schoolers slowly warm up with the heat, so it isn’t as bad for them. If we had air conditioning, the bus ride probably wouldn’t be so bad.

I think this is an important problem that should be fixed for the students’ health and education. I know all the staff have been working very hard to make schools a comfortable learning environment, but we need a long-term solution. That solution is air-conditioned classes for all.

Maia Bracksieck

65 Walnut Tree Hill Road, Sandy Hook         September 10, 2018