{"id":51651,"date":"2025-07-09T14:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T14:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51651\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T14:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T14:53:09","slug":"extreme-heat-on-l-a-school-campuses-must-be-urgently-addressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51651\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme heat on L.A. school campuses must be \u2018urgently\u2019 addressed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>To the editor<\/b>: We must act urgently to address extreme heat on our public school campuses (<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2025-07-08\/extreme-heat-wildfires-full-time-job-for-parents-of-young-kids-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cDealing with extreme heat is a full-time job for parents of young kids \u2014 and their schools,\u201d<\/a> July 8). Contrary to the article\u2019s characterization, Los Angeles Unified School District has made green space a priority following <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lausd.org\/cms\/lib\/CA01000043\/Centricity\/Domain\/1057\/09-27-22RegBdOBpost.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">my 2022 resolution<\/a> that set a new standard requiring all school playgrounds to include at least 30% green space. Since then, our district has dedicated more than $1.2 billion of voter-approved bond funding toward greening and shading projects and more than 150 greening projects are currently in progress.<\/p>\n<p>As the representative for East San Fernando Valley schools and an LAUSD parent, I know that we are starting to see the positive results of bringing green spaces to our campuses, but so many of our schools are still intensely hot. We must and will do more to transform all our public school campuses with the urgency this environmental justice issue demands.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly Gonez, Los Angeles<\/p>\n<p>..<\/p>\n<p><b>To the editor<\/b>: I also learned the hard way that air conditioning is a life or death requirement, not a luxury. During a brutal heat wave in late July 2022, my 4-month-old was playing on the tile floor of my home, which had no AC. He slowly stopped waving his rattle, then stopped making sounds, then laid his cheek down on the floor and stared blankly at the wall. I checked his temperature and found it to be  103 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>Now terrified, I stripped him down, washed him with cool cloths and got him in the car with the AC on full blast. We raced to my in-laws\u2019 house, which has AC, and laid him on the wood floor. After an hour, he started moving and cooing again and he was fine. That was the most frightening day of my life, thinking that I was going to watch my baby die in front of my eyes. When we moved a year later, AC was the No. 1 non-negotiable item on our list for our new home.<\/p>\n<p>Kristen Robles, Ventura<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: We must act urgently to address extreme heat on our public school campuses (\u201cDealing with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[38689,9898,1582,276,38694,38693,7129,38691,6370,8191,316,5991,38692,2961,2252,224,2444,5337,6976,38690],"class_list":{"0":"post-51651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ac","9":"tag-air-conditioning","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-characterization","13":"tag-death-requirement","14":"tag-editor","15":"tag-environmental-justice-issue-demand","16":"tag-extreme-heat","17":"tag-green-space","18":"tag-home","19":"tag-july","20":"tag-kelly-gonez","21":"tag-la","22":"tag-life","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-los-angeles-times","25":"tag-losangeles","26":"tag-parent","27":"tag-tile-floor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114823850121511495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}