Parents call on TCDSB to fix intense heat in Etobicoke school

With sweltering heat set to descend upon southern Ontario this week, parents with kids attending an Etobicoke school without air conditioning are pleading with the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) to do something about it.

Ava Janeiro attends St. Gregory Catholic Schooland knows firsthand just how hot her third-floor classroom can get especially because the school's windows only open about three inches.

"It's hard to breathe. My head starts to hurt, I feel nauseous, my stomach hurts and I get rashes all over my body," she told CBC News. "It's really scary."

It's gotten so bad that Ava was recently diagnosed with heat exhaustion, said her mother, Rachel Janeiro.

"We've taken her to the doctor, and we've been advised that if she gets any of these symptoms again, to take her straight to [emergency]," Janeiro said.

According to a report presented to the TCDSBin 2022, on a 25 C day, temperatures on the third floor of the building reached 28 C.

WATCH | Students describe intense heat:

'It's hard to breathe': students describe heat inside Toronto classrooms as unbearable

2 months ago

Duration 2:26

Parents at one Toronto school are worried about sending their kids to a school without air conditioning. Parents tell reporter Lane Harrison the temperature inside Etobicoke's St. Gregory Catholic School can sometimes be hotter than the heat wave outside.

It's set to be much hotter than that in Toronto this week. The city is under a heat warning with daytime highs expected to reach between 30 C and 35 C, with it feeling more like 40 or 45 with the humidity.

Heat exhaustion worries

Parents have created an online petition asking the school board to step in, which currently has just over 750signatures.

"Really we just want to send our kids to school and not worry about them suffering heat exhaustion," Janeiro said.

In a statement sent to CBC News, the TCDSB said it recognizes climate change is leading to more extreme weather, and in turn increasing the number of hot days happening while school is still in session.

"To mitigate some of these impacts, TCDSB has made it a priority to ensure that schools in our system have at least one cooling area in their facility where staff can rotate classrooms to ensure students receive some relief from the warmer temperatures," the board said.

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Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, explains what conditions create a heat dome and how 'oppressive and sultry' temperatures get locked in for days.

In St. Gregory's case, that's the library but parents say it only has a capacity of about 80 people, with a student population that tops 700, plus teachers.

The board also said in its statement that air conditioning is not possible within current provincial education ministry benchmarks for new schools, and that annual renewal funding provided to boards isn't enough to allow for retrofitting of schools that don't have air conditioning as it is spread among"many different competing priorities."

"That is why we have asked the Ministry of Education to permit our Board to use our own dollars to build new schools with air conditioning," the board said.

The statement goes on to say that following a board meeting last week, the TCDSB will "begin a fulsome and detailed analysis of classroom conditions across the system related to excessive heat" and report back with findings, including recommendations in the "immediate and long term" to help with excessive heat.

Parents pull kids from class

But parents say immediate action is needed. Sara Concordia, whose daughter Abigale attends St. Gregory, told CBC News that parent groups have been trying to get the board to do something for 15 years.

"From May to October, we consistently have temperatures over 30 degrees, and we have parents very concerned about their children, and children coming home sick," she said.

Multiple parents told CBC News that they would have to consider pulling their children out of school this week should temperatures rise to an unbearable level.

"In my class it's like really hot. We have four fans but it doesn't really help it just makes the classroom even louder," Abigale said about her fourth grade class.

She is used to trips to the library cooling centre, but said she would love to see air conditioning in her school.

"It's really hard to focus," she said.

"It's super hot. It's uncomfortable."