As schools close due to extreme heat, parents ask for updated school calendar

Three Tri-State school districts have decided to either dismiss some students early or close this week due to extreme heat .

Lockland Schools announced on Tuesday it will close its main campus for the rest of the week once students are dismissed. Staff will still report to work throughout the week, but students will not.

"We've been through this before,” Debbie Ruehl, an Oak Hills School District grandparent, told WCPO 9 News.

Lockland's main campus building is undergoing construction, the district said.

Finneytown High School and Oak Hills Schools will also have early dismissals this week.

Oak Hills Local School District announced Monday that students at Oak Hills High School, Delhi Middle School and Bridgetown Middle School will be released two hours early.

“Everyone loves the early dismissal,” Oak Hills High School student Vinny Ilunga said. “As far as the teachers are concerned, unfortunately, the teachers don’t get to leave early though."

The district said all three of the schools are either partially air-conditioned or have no air conditioning at all.

“It was a little uncomfortable,” Ilunga said, describing his time in the classroom. “It made it a little bit hard to work and some classrooms had AC, and some didn't.”

No air conditioning in schools with older buildings, like those in Oak Hills and nearby Finneytown, is not uncommon.

During the COVID pandemic, there was speculation about funding using $4.5 billion in leftover funds from the federal government sent to Ohio schools to deal with issues like this. However, such funding improvements or even funds from the state would need to come from a local vote on a bond issue, Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, told WCPO.

DiMauro contends there are other non-financial solutions districts in Ohio should consider.

“Schools didn't use to start as early as they do now and one of the largest driving factors in that has been standardized testing,” said DiMauro. “When schools have to get a certain amount of instruction done before that spring testing window, that has forced more schools to move their calendar up earlier and earlier.”

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