It’s July, and the temperature registers 84 degrees Fahrenheit with 68% humidity at the summer camp at Culebra Ecological School, located on the island municipality just off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast. Less than two hours later, as students line up for lunch, the temperature has climbed three degrees, while the humidity has decreased slightly. After lunch, the youngest go out to the playground in front of the kindergarten and special education classrooms. Zedrik, wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt, sits beside an areca palm that hasn’t grown enough to provide shade, watching his classmates play.

“I’m going to third grade in August,” he says. When asked if he’d like to wear a cap for sun protection, he replies, “If I bring a cap, I’ll just forget it somewhere.” Zaidliany joins the conversation, smiling with a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead to the tip of her nose. “I left my sunglasses at home, back on the main island of Puerto Rico,” says the girl who will start first grade in August, when asked how she protects herself from the sun.

Although the school’s heat safety protocol has not been activated, at least two teachers have suffered from heat exhaustion at the Culebra Ecological School since 2023. If afternoon temperatures get too high, Kenneth, a ninth-grader, retreats to the library, while Nayla, an eighth-grader, heads to the principal’s office —both air-conditioned rooms, though neither cools fully. Students in summer programs simply make do with the classroom fans during the hottest hours of the day.

Designated as an emergency shelter, the school has generators and a solar panel system donated by the Red Cross, according to Rubén Vargas of the Public Buildings Authority (AEP, in Spanish). However, voltage fluctuations have damaged cafeteria equipment, the ceiling fans no longer run at full capacity, and there are only four water fountains for the entire school of 136 students and 22 teachers, school nurse Marlene Monell Rodríguez and cafeteria worker María Villanueva confirmed. 

Each classroom has ceiling and pedestal fans, but the heat can become unbearable, especially in the secondary building, which lacks proper ventilation. Some teachers take turns using the library or community room, typically reserved for faculty meetings, to hold classes there because those spaces have air conditioning.

For three years, the school community has been waiting for the AEP to conduct an electrical capacity study so more air conditioners can be installed.

“My agency is a little slow. You can file reports, but it’s up to them to finish certain tasks. I’m a handyman and can check an air conditioner, but I can’t repair it —that has to be done by an electrician or refrigeration technician,” Vargas explained.

In the Humacao educational region, which includes the Culebra Ecological School, the School Nursing Program reported 135 cases in 2023 requiring activation of the heat safety protocol for students affected by extreme temperatures. The following school year, the Humacao region, which includes schools on the East Coast, again had the highest number of cases, with 124 students requiring activation of the protocol.

Culebra’s experience mirrors data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), showing that in 2024, heat indices exceeded 93 degrees Fahrenheit at stations such as Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba, which is part of the Humacao region. The Ponce station, on the island’s southwest coast, recorded the highest index at 104 degrees. Carolina, in the north, matched Ceiba’s 98-degree reading. The heat index measures how hot it feels once humidity is factored in.

Additionally, a recent study by five University of Puerto Rico (UPR) academics, examining temperature changes at 12 monitoring stations across the island over half a century and their link to climate change, found a pattern of rising heat intensity in the northwest and southeast regions.

Since the Department of Education’s School Nursing Program began collecting data on these incidents in 2023, no other educational region has had more than 100 cases requiring the protocol. Of the 124 schools in Humacao, only 19 have an emergency generator, while 25 have solar panel systems, according to agency data from May.

Globally, the education of approximately 171 million students was disrupted by heatwaves in 2024, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) analysis. Children —especially younger ones— and athletes are among the most vulnerable to extreme heat, in part because children sweat less “and have a faster metabolism, meaning they heat up faster.” Spending more time outdoors increases their risk of heat exposure, and “when playing or exercising, children are less likely to rehydrate, which can be dangerous.” 

How School Nurses Address Rising Temperatures

Before Hurricane María, not every school had a nurse. “Schools weren’t structured to include a nursing area,” explained Evelyn Rivera García, director of the School Nursing Program, to the CPI. She assured that today “every school now has an appointed nurse,” totaling 888 professionals, according to the Department of Education’s website.

Although the program lacks a fixed budget, Rivera García noted that “whenever we’ve requested funding, we’ve always been given enough to cover material or personnel needs.”

In her seven years working at Culebra Ecological School, Monell Rodríguez has never had to activate the heat protocol for students. “I’m constantly telling students, ‘Drink water,’” she said. She recalled treating math teacher José Quintana when he suffered heat exhaustion at the school in 2023. 

The triathlete recounts, “I’d never felt anything like it. It started with a headache, then turned into chills —that’s when I got scared.”

When the heat safety protocol is activated, Monell Rodríguez explained, “the first step is to treat the symptoms: we apply cold compresses or place a cold water bottle on the neck to bring down the temperature and move the person to a cooler area.”

Monell Rodríguez took Quintana’s blood pressure, which “was sky-high,” and provided hydration and pain relievers. “I learned from the experience. Now I keep a small hotel-style mini-fridge in my classroom, stocked with water and other supplies. I was lucky —a colleague was buying a bigger fridge and gave me his old one,” said Quintana, who lives in Rincón, a municipality on Puerto Rico’s west coast.

According to the Department of Health’s Syndromic Surveillance System, between 2023 and May 2025, there were 795 emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses. The municipalities in the Humacao educational region fall under the Metro, Fajardo, and Caguas health areas, where four out of 10 of these visits took place. Looking at the visits by age group, about 20% were patients under 19. Although this surveillance system exists, the agency still lacks a plan to address heatwaves.

Academic research confirms that exposure to extreme heat is linked to reduced cognitive performance in children, particularly among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. These studies also show that without air conditioning, for every degree the temperature rises, learning outcomes decline by about 1% over the course of a school year.

“You’re also talking about exposure to other pollutants,” explained pediatrician Gredia Huerta. “When the temperature rises, air quality declines proportionally.”

Coping with Heat While School Reconstruction Stalls

Education is one of the services most disrupted by climate change–related events, but in most countries, schools lack sufficient resources to effectively protect students and teachers from the impact of natural phenomena, UNICEF warns. Significant investments are also not being made to adapt educational environments to this reality. The CPI collaborates with the Associated Press, CalMatters in California, Civil Beat in Honolulu, and Blue Ridge Public Radio in North Carolina to examine how school communities are recovering from natural disasters.

At Luis Muñoz Marín School in Yabucoa, in southeastern Puerto Rico, the school community improvised with raffles or by charging a fee for a “casual dress day” to acquire at least one pedestal fan for each classroom. Meanwhile, parents sent their children with portable fans to help them cope with the heat. Teachers also adjusted their routines, sometimes holding class outdoors or in the library, which has air conditioning, said history teacher Josian Casanova Rodríguez. The Department of Education provided only six fans for the entire school, which serves 150 students and has 16 teachers.

The agency acknowledged Puerto Rico’s vulnerability to climate change in a 2023 guidance memo. In a more recent directive, it said it was “fully aware of the island’s energy crisis.”

Since the arrival of LUMA Energy, the private company that took over electricity distribution in 2021, customers have been without power for an average of 13 hours a year and have experienced an average of four outages annually. The electrical system is currently in a state of emergency —apart from the crisis caused by Hurricane María— because of a critical decline in generation capacity combined with surging demand during summer afternoons.

“Last year, we had students with blood sugar issues, dizziness, and staff who had to leave because they couldn’t stand the heat.”

“This August is expected to be even hotter, and we don’t know how the Department will deal with it —or how we’ll respond,” said Casanova Rodríguez.

The Department of Education developed a protocol on extreme heat as part of each school’s Operational Emergency Plan, but progress has stalled in rebuilding the island’s school infrastructure, damaged by hurricanes and earthquakes eight years ago. Schools are not prepared or designed to withstand hotter and increasingly frequent days amid the energy crisis, according to interviews with staff, experts, climatological data, and information provided by the Department of Education.

“This year, they bought air conditioners and installed them, but we don’t have enough capacity to connect them. We’ve been waiting two years for the Public Buildings Authority to fix the school’s electrical substation and increase its capacity,” said the Yabucoa teacher.

Extreme heat can act as a psychological stressor, alter mood, trigger anxiety, and reduce memory capacity, explained school clinical psychologist and University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras professor Nellie Zambrana.

“Both teachers’ and students’ moods are drastically affected. In the afternoon classes, I have to have different discipline codes than in the morning to capture students’ attention because otherwise, the class goes with ‘Mister, it’s so hot. It’s so hot.’ And it’s true, you see them with sweaty arms, notebooks wet with sweat,” detailed Quintana, the math teacher.

“Sometimes I’ve been wrong —I scolded a student and forgot why they were acting that way. You have to tone down the afternoon classes,” he added.

Casanova Rodríguez, for his part, admits that “it’s hard enough for teachers to stay focused in such heat, imagine the students trying to concentrate.”

Considering that Puerto Rico’s school infrastructure has been under reconstruction since Hurricane María in 2017, the Department of Education still hasn’t achieved what experts call “school resilience,” meaning campuses equipped with cisterns, generators, or photovoltaic systems. At Luis Muñoz Marín School, “if the power goes out, there are no options,” Casanova Rodríguez noted.

Each school must know its environment and risk factors, environmental health specialist Gredia Huerta Montañez recommends. “Even if the Department of Education has guidelines related to climate change, each school must understand its reality, develop a written plan with clearly defined roles, and review that plan regularly with participation from the entire school community,” she urged. 

The extreme heat protocol, included as an annex in the school’s Operational Emergency Plan, only contains general recommendations —such as staying hydrated or spending as much time as possible in ventilated or air-conditioned spaces. It does not include any specific initiatives to identify spaces for students affected by heatstroke or to reforest school campuses. When compared with protocols from four U.S. school districts, the general recommendations on hydration and limiting outdoor activities are the same. However, the U.S. protocols go further, with detailed guidance on when to suspend outdoor activities based on the heat index, how often hydration breaks should occur, and when to halt physical activity altogether.

“The reality is that depending on how well —or poorly— equipped a school is, the situation will only worsen for all students,” warned Zambrana.

Schools without cross ventilation, those with broken air conditioners, and windows covered by plastic screens are some of the examples Zambrana mentioned regarding schools’ lack of preparation to face heatwaves. “You can’t take students out to the basketball court if it doesn’t have a roof and say, ‘let’s take advantage of natural ventilation.’ All of this will affect students cognitively —and teachers too,” the psychologist elaborated. 

The Energy Demand Challenge

As extreme heat becomes more common, the demand for cooling to keep schools at safe and comfortable temperatures continues to rise. A Climate Central analysis, done by an organization of independent scientists and communicators researching climate change, estimated that over the past decade, back-to-school air conditioning demand in the U.S. has increased by 34%. Similarly, during the summer of 2023 in Puerto Rico, daily energy demand rose by up to 30 percent, according to research from the University at Albany and the City University of New York (CUNY).

“A colleague bought four portable air conditioning units. When he plugged them in, the system crashed. Then he unplugged one. The Public Buildings Authority worker came, reset the breakers, left three running, and the system failed again. He unplugged another, and it still failed. In the end, only one unit could stay on. That’s when we realized the school had a major electrical problem,” recounted Professor Quintana.

Both the Department of Education and the Office for the Improvement of Public Schools (OMEP) have invested more than $15 million since 2021 in purchasing or renting and installing air conditioning systems in 12 schools. Three companies were contracted for this work: A.C.R. Systems, Jayvee Conditioning & General Contractors, and Alfredo Atkinson. The Public Buildings Authority has also rented air conditioning units for three schools since at least 2023, at a total cost of $417,980.

At Culebra Ecological School, the only areas with air conditioning are the library, the community room, the principal’s office, and the special education and kindergarten classrooms. Although air conditioners provide some relief, Quintana argues that “it’s like shooting yourself in the foot —it creates a vicious circle, because who pays the electricity bill? We have to think about the school’s architectural design: high ceilings, open layouts, and consideration of sunrise, sunset, and wind currents.”

The main school building, which doubles as an emergency shelter, has the characteristics Quintana described. The secondary building, however, does not.

The adaptation of schools to extreme heat “has advanced very little on the Department’s part,” said José Javier Hernández Ayala, an associate professor of physical–spatial analysis at the University of Puerto Rico’s Graduate School of Planning. “Most of the effort has come from parents and teachers,” he added, noting that he and his father-in-law installed air conditioners at the public school where his wife teaches.

Huerta Montañez, for her part, emphasized that learning is affected not only by heat at school, “but also by what happens at home: power goes out every day or the unstable grid damages air conditioners. That child can’t study well, do homework, or sleep.”

While filling schools with air conditioners is not the only solution, Hernández Ayala proposes turning schools into energy- and climate-resilience hubs with photovoltaic systems, for example. He also suggests reforestation projects, better planning and design to create shade, and replacing outdated refrigeration and air-conditioning systems with energy-efficient equipment.

The obsolescence of equipment is not unique to Puerto Rico. Since 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has estimated that 41% of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems.

Research from the University at Albany and CUNY highlights that rising energy demand strains existing infrastructure “which wasn’t designed to handle such heavy loads efficiently. The study calls for better insulation and windows to improve efficiency and reduce cooling costs, along with more advanced climate-control systems.”

At Culebra Ecological School, voltage fluctuations have damaged cafeteria equipment —including the ice machine, a refrigerator, and ceiling fans— said María Villanueva, who has worked there for five years. The three cafeteria employees cook without an exhaust hood. The food storage room has poor ventilation and lighting, so they have had to “discard food frequently,” when canned products spoil before their expiration date because of heat or humidity. 

In April 2024, the Department of Education contracted the engineering firm M2A Group for $2,142,000 to conduct a first-phase assessment of electrical substations and overall capacity at 400 of Puerto Rico’s 709 public schools.

The CPI requested the M2A Group report, but the Department provided only a partial version. The documents show that the company analyzed 425 schools across the San Juan, Bayamón, Mayagüez, Ponce, and Arecibo education regions. M2A found that 365 of those schools had air-conditioning systems that were not functioning.

The Department’s standards for “energy efficiency” instruct principals and teachers to educate students about energy conservation and the climate impact of electricity use; to turn off equipment and lights at the end of each day; and to set air-conditioner temperatures between 70 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Without a clear picture of schools’ energy needs, reforestation emerges as a cost-effective way to mitigate heat. Last year, the Department of Education announced a partnership with the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA, in Spanish) to plant trees on school campuses. Between April 2024 and May 2025, 39 trees were planted across eight campuses.

Schools in Puerto Rico celebrated Arbor Day annually starting in the late 19th century. Traditionally, students planted trees in schoolyards that day. The tradition faded over time —contributing to the lack of shade students face today.

Trailer offices for school psychologists

The sequence of emergencies since 2017 has exposed Puerto Rico’s school-age population to anxiety, depression, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress due to disrupted routines and, in some cases, displacement. Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that exposure to extreme heat raises the risk of anxiety and depression in children. Under these conditions, an increase in students seeking help from school psychologists is expected.

Zambrana notes that learning about climate change while seeing little policy progress fuels frustration among students and teachers alike.

“Public policy has to help and contribute. Can’t we at least fix ventilation? There’s no excuse —the Department of Education’s budget can cover that and more. We also need to think about how to maximize open spaces in our schools,” she said.

In 2000, Puerto Rico created school psychologist positions by law. Today, the Department reports 58 vacancies across 870 schools. Psychology professionals have denounced excessive administrative workloads, delayed pay, and the lack of private spaces suitable for confidential sessions.

Zambrana said that although the law is more than 20 years old, funding wasn’t allocated in earnest until the pandemic.

“Only after the pandemic did they look for a budget. Paradoxically, with fewer students, we face more difficulties —those students’ problems have grown and multiplied,” said Zambrana.

To address space constraints, in early May, Department of Education Secretary Eliezer Ramos Parés signed a contract worth nearly $9 million with Salud para Todos Inc. to provide and install 11 office trailers for school psychologists on or before August 30. Each trailer costs $80,136.99.

Meanwhile, one psychologist may be assigned to multiple schools. The Department confirmed to the CPI that five school psychologists currently serve two campuses each, in the Humacao and Ponce regions. 

Emergency Response Impossible Without Data

Disasters of varying scale —from hurricanes to flooding from intense rains and even heatwaves— affect not only student and teacher performance but also schools’ ability to operate.

The Associated Press reported that after Hurricane Helene in September 2024, schools in North Carolina could not resume classes for weeks due to power and water outages and impassable roads across the region. In Asheville, the largest city in western North Carolina, schools stayed closed for a month while district leaders debated how to reopen without potable water. Ultimately, the district arranged for FEMA to supply pallets of bottled water and water tanks for bathroom use.

In more remote areas, schools were closed for two months. In Yancey County — home to the highest mountain east of the Mississippi — Micaville Elementary students lost 39 school days and had to split enrollment between two district campuses. Returning to classrooms required a herculean effort, and some students had to say goodbye to their entire class. Emotional and psychological support took precedence; following the curriculum became secondary.

In Puerto Rico, teacher leaders, organizations, and academics estimate that 98 school days were lost after Hurricanes Irma and María in 2017. The Department of Education does not systematically record these disaster-related losses, according to statements the agency made in an information-access lawsuit filed by the climate justice organization El Puente.

“We can’t keep responding to emergencies as isolated events — without planning and data. The only way to achieve the climate justice we seek is with accurate information that tells us what we’re facing so we can draw up an effective plan,” said the organization’s executive director, Federico Cintrón Moscoso.

Two weeks before the semester began, the Department of Education released two directives with preventive strategies for extreme heat. The first lists measures that school communities have already implemented, as documented by the CPI. The second announces the distribution of water to students in cartons at $1.95 million.

This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.