Introduction
Developed by the Network for Resilient PK–12 Schools in Extreme Climates, this report examines how extreme heat affects students, educators, families, and school systems and provides practical, evidence-informed guidance grounded in psychological science to help school communities respond.
This report is the first in the Schools, Climate, and Health series.
Learn more about the series and the Network for Resilient PK–12 Schools in Extreme Climates.
Children spend a substantial portion of their waking hours in school buildings, often during the hottest parts of the day and year. Extreme heat is not a seasonal inconvenience. It is a growing health, learning, and operational challenge for school communities.
When school environments are unable to protect students and educators from extreme heat, the result is not only lost instructional time, but preventable harm to both children and educators’ well-being.
Impacts
Student health and well-being
Extreme heat can contribute to dehydration, heat-related illness, sleep disruption, emotional distress, and increased mental health risks.
Learning and development
High temperatures can affect attention, memory, decision-making, emotion regulation, behavior, academic performance, and students’ ability to participate fully in learning.
Educator well-being and effectiveness
Educators and school staff may experience fatigue, physical strain, irritability, emotional exhaustion, and reduced capacity to support students effectively.
School operations and equity
School buildings, transportation systems, staffing, access to cooling, community infrastructure, and available resources all influence how effectively schools can respond. Communities with fewer resources may face greater exposure and fewer options for reducing risk.
Recommendations
- Designate district-level heat leadership and accountability structures
- Develop and implement heat thresholds and monitoring procedures, integrated into emergency and safety planning
- Prioritize mitigation in the most impacted areas
- Reduce student and educator heat exposure across classrooms, transportation, and school activities using system-level protections
- Ensure automatic protection for students and staff who are more vulnerable to extreme heat
- Implement developmentally and physiologically informed protocols for monitoring symptoms and managing heat‑related health risks
- Reduce educator heat exposure through additional protections
- Implement heat-specific policies for athletics, extracurriculars, after-school programs, and transportation
- Ensure continuity of learning and indoor environmental quality during extreme heat
- Treat heat like a “snow day for cognition”
- Adopt heat‑responsive emotion‑regulation and training
- Establish heat-responsive mental health and staff preparedness plans
- Coordinate heat response with families and caregivers to reduce downstream risk
- Conduct heat equity audits supported by ongoing monitoring and continuous improvement
- Implement heat‑aware funding and staffing policies to prevent compounding inequities
Contributors to the report
- American Psychological Association
- American Public Health Association
- Children’s Environmental Health Network
- Climate Mental Health Network
- DLR Group
- National Association for the Education of Young Children
- National Education Association
- National Parent Teacher Association
- Society for Environmental, Population, and Conservation Psychology (APA Division 34)