Announcer (00:01): Highlighting the amazing stories from inside the North Clackamas School District. This is the Proud To Be NCSD Podcast, hosted by longtime principal and current community relations director. Curtis Long
Curtis Long (00:16): Well, it seems only fitting that we tee up season number three of the Proud To Be NCSD podcast with the sounds of high school football in the air. Less than a week into the school year, two of our district high schools lined up against each other with the Mustangs of Milwaukie High visiting the Rex Putnam High Kingsmen. And as we always like to kick off a new season here on the podcast, we'll huddle up with one of our favorite district team captains. Not only does she never miss a block in her schedule to visit one of our district's 32 schools chatting with students in the classroom or even at lunch.
Dr. Shay James (00:49): That looks pretty delicious though. I gotta say
Curtis Long (00:51): She's even a good enough sport to star in Super Bowl parody commercial videos to help keep spirits high among NCSD staff.
Announcer Voice (00:58): What you need is Dr. James Roll On Relief, the fast acting arthritis pain reliever.
Dr. Shay James (01:04): Hi, I'm Dr. Shay James and you don't really believe that I developed a roll on that can help people move better and live a better life. I certainly didn't create roll on relief like this commercial shows.
Curtis Long (01:14): She's returned her lab coat and stethoscope to join us. It's NCSD Superintendent, Dr. Shay James, who always is kind enough to sit down with us at the start of a new school year. What is she most proud of as the school year breaks the huddle, but the bigger focus today? What happens when Mother Nature suddenly sends in a trick play?
Local News Clip (01:33): Storm tracker two, weather alert team coverage tonight. K 2's Shelby Slaughter spoke to county officials about staying safe in the heat. But first we wanna get to those important school closures. All North Clackamas Schools are closed tomorrow. That includes before and aftercare.
Curtis Long (01:47): NCSD closed all schools on Friday, September 6th due to that excessive heat wave. And whether you think that was the right call or a fumble, we wanted to take you inside the district level huddle to learn the reasons why in the end NCSD decided to pass on conducting school in such extreme temperatures. Also, joining us today are Chief of Operations, Teresa Neff Webster, Facility Operations Supervisor Leif Palmer, and the principal of Adrienne C Nelson High School. Greg Harris. What is NCSD doing at both the district and school levels to tackle extreme heat? All that as season number three of the Proud To Be NCSD podcast kicks off.
New Speaker (02:26): Shay, Teresa, Leif, Greg, thanks so much for taking time outta your busy schedules to be here today.
New Speaker (02:31): Glad to be here. Thanks for having us.
Curtis Long (02:33): Alright, before we put all four of you on the hot seat to talk about how we tackle excessive heat in our district, we are now into our first full week of the new school year, Shay, our kindergartners. Yes. That class of 2037. Can you believe that they joined us this week? What do you love most about the start of the school year?
Dr. Shay James (02:50): Well, Curtis, I really think about the potential for what the new year brings for all of our students as we kick off and as I've been visiting the classrooms, it's been fun to see all of the smiles, to see the confidence that our kindergartners bring to see the skill sets that they are bringing in with them, that they're just gonna launch into our new school year.
Curtis Long (03:09): Yeah, it was fun seeing them. Earlier this week I was out at a couple of schools watching those kindergartners come into the classroom and it's fun watching them take over their new room. They learn where everything is, where their cubby is, and where their table seat is. It's really fun to watch. So that going on in our district this week. But of course last week, an interesting week for us in the school district. And Shay, what do you say we take you off the hot seat here and get to our next guests to talk a little bit more about well... Heat.
Curtis Long (03:35): Well you heard it right there on the local newscast. That was the five o'clock news on Thursday, September 5th, where the high temperature in our area crept toward triple digits and the low for that evening wasn't projected to allow our buildings to sufficiently cool.
Curtis Long (03:48): So as district leaders, what do you do? Well, you already heard the decision, but what were the factors behind that decision to close schools Friday, September 6th here to answer those questions. Our NCSD Chief of Operations, Theresa Neff Webster, facility operations supervisor, Leif Palmer, and a principal who was on the front lines battling the recent heatwave in one of our high schools. It's Adrienne C. Nelson High School principal, Greg Harris, Theresa, Leif, Greg, thanks again for being with us today. Teresa. Let's hear a little bit about your background because you are brand new to our school district and welcome to your first week on the job when kids are in class. We're gonna close schools for one day, <laugh>.
Teresa Neff-Webster (04:25): Yeah, thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be joining the team and yes, I am new to the team, uh, but I've been in education my entire career. I started off as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago Public Schools and international schools for 16 years. And then I moved into operations and I've been in operations for the following 16 years on the East coast. And most recently I was the Chief of Operations for Boston Public Schools. And uh, when people say operations, there's sometimes they're like, what does that even mean? So in operations, that means I support our facilities teams, our, um, transportation, nutrition, wellness team, our safety and risk management team, our technology team, and our community service team, which is also our care team. And I have the distinct history of starting with Boston Public Schools the day that they shut down, um, during the pandemic Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I had four years of experience working with indoor air quality and air exchanges and creating safe and great spaces for our students. So one of the things that I am excited to bring to this team is that history, that knowledge base, and also that learning understanding of our buildings here and how we operate during extreme weather. And that's it.
Curtis Long (05:35): And Teresa coming to us from Boston, hot sticky weather. Did you bring that with you to us? We're not used to that kind of weather.
Teresa Neff-Webster (05:41): Not intentionally, I promise. I was under the impression the Pacific Northwest was much chillier than the humid East Coast, but I'm excited that it seems to be dying down.
Curtis Long (05:50): Well, we're certainly happy to have you here. Leif Palmer a fairly new position for you as well as a facility operation supervisor. Tell us a little bit about your role in the district.
Leif Palmer (05:58): Yeah, I've started working for the district about seven years ago as a senior purchasing specialist. Spent most of my time assisting with the 2016 capital improvement construction bond. And about six months ago moved into my current role as facility operations supervisor and happy to be here. Uh, got to know the district, uh, ins and outs through the bond and just happy to, uh, to be moving on to facilities now
Curtis Long (06:20): And talking about knowing the ins and outs of different schools. We'll get to this a little bit later, but you guys can monitor what's going on in each building remotely, uh, as far as temperatures goes. And we'll get to that in just a little bit. And Greg Harris, the only principal that Adrienne C. Nelson has known in its four years of existence. How are things going so far in our district's largest high school?
Greg Harris (06:38): Yeah, thank you. A little history note is that, uh, Adrian c Nelson High School, although I am the only principal there, I was the also the assistant principal at Rock Creek Middle School when it was on the site of the same building. The same building. That's right. And so I'm pretty familiar with that building in the ins and outs of it.
Curtis Long (06:52): Everything going well to start the year? I know you had a tough football loss in week one.
Greg Harris (06:56): That's right. But kids are super excited. High school's a rite of passage. So the freshmen are coming in and, and ready to tackle high school and our seniors are gearing up for what lies beyond for them after high school. So everybody's pretty excited about the school year.
Curtis Long (07:09): Alright, let's get to last week. I gotta imagine the first week of school, 20 24, one that each of you will remember for unique reasons I would imagine. So we'll just get to all of you. Dr. James, how about you first? Did you ever imagine that we would not complete a first full week of school with Friday's temperatures?
Dr. Shay James (07:26): I absolutely would not have thought that that would have been in our horizons as much as I would've not thought we would've had a snow day in April of last year. So we've, uh, had quite a few firsts in this last season.
Curtis Long (07:39): Yeah, by the way, that snow day last April, that was on my birthday and I joked with everyone that I blew out the candles in for a day off it came true <laugh>. I didn't actually get the day off as we worked here in the district office, but a day off for students nonetheless. Teresa, how about for you?
Teresa Neff-Webster (07:52): Yeah, I think it was a strong start to the week and a difficult end to the week for all of us. And we were monitoring everything for many days before we made the decision to close on Friday. But I'm just super grateful to the skilled work of our facilities department and the partnership orientation around the district to get us to where we needed to decide to close on Friday.
Curtis Long (08:15): And Leif, how busy were you on Friday?
Leif Palmer (08:17): Uh, very busy Thursday afternoon and Friday morning was, uh, a busy time. We had a a lot of people to get ahold of and had to reschedule quite a bit of, uh, activities and contractors on site. But uh, I saw the writing on the walls as the temperature wasn't cooling to where we needed it, even though we were doing everything in our powers to make that happen, that it was a possibility that that ultimately happened.
Curtis Long (08:38): And Greg, you arrived early at Adrienne C. Nelson on Thursday morning. You noticed the temperature going up. What are you thinking as a principal of a building?
Greg Harris (08:45): Yeah, definitely. So it was cool the night before and so I definitely noticed that the, the, the building started off warm but at a, at a reasonable temperature by the end of the day on Thursday it was pretty clear the building was hot and the night was going to remain pretty warm. And so the ability for our buildings to cool itself down after kind of an extreme heat wave like Thursday and Friday, I was thinking as I right before I checked the email that said that we had canceled school, that I was very concerned about the next day and how we would start, especially when you're putting, you know, students into a classroom that will always raise the temperature.
Curtis Long (09:16): Alright, let's get to the, probably the biggest question on many families minds after last week. Why don't schools, and this is just not in NCSD, why aren't schools built with air conditioning in our schools? I checked and did some research. We don't have any classrooms that are equipped with air conditioning. Why is that? As a school district, I'm sure a lot of families would like to know that.
Teresa Neff-Webster (09:33): Sure. So with most of our houses as well, when our, our schools were built over 50 years ago, majority of them, they were not an in a space where the heat was an issue at the beginning and the end of school years where we needed to consider having HVAC and air conditioning units into our spaces. And this isn't to your point, just a North Clackamas issue. This is an issue across our country now. The last five years in particular has seen extreme heat at the end of our school years and at the beginning of our school years as well.
Dr. Shay James (10:02): I would just add, you know, we had some folks here that did a little research going back to 2014. And even looking over those years, we have only had every year during, uh, school days where we had students about two to three days where heat is actually a potential impact for them in the schools and the classrooms. So even though we see the climate changes happening, it's still not impacting our schools to the degree that one might think. Although when it does, it does.
Curtis Long (10:31): Yeah. It's at the front of our minds for sure. And that's why Greg, I was going to ask you, you mentioned that you were in Adrienne C. Nelson's current building as an assistant principal at Rock Creek as well. Same building. How many times can you remember when heat has been an issue in that building?
Greg Harris (10:43): Yeah, so the heat can be sporadic in different places. So the heat can be higher in some hallways depending on whether the sun is hitting them or not. And so in different places of the building, it might be on an 85 degree day fine in some classrooms, and then in other classrooms it could be very, very hot in those classrooms. And so I remember at the beginning of the year, um, and at the end of the year, there might be one or two days, we were lucky this last June where there weren't really a whole lot of days that kind of pushed that threshold. And then we start this school year, um, with mild temperatures at the beginning and middle of August and then all of a sudden we get hit by the heat wave. So it happens a few times, um, during the year where we have to start to think about, you know, heat mitigation for our classrooms. And then, you know, in the extreme example of last week, um, closing school
Curtis Long (11:22): And Leif and Teresa, I'm sure you could answer this now, let's just say NCSD could wave a magic wand and install air conditioning at each of our 32 schools. Well it would certainly need to be a magic wand because how much would that cost to install air conditioning across the district?
Teresa Neff-Webster (11:36): Yeah, it, it's actually both cost and time consideration. Sure. So the cost estimation is around $4.5 million per school. So that's over $150 million. Wow. A whole project. And then if you think about installation of HVAC and air conditioning units, units, it's not simply putting the piping in. It's actually all of the structural infrastructure that has to go in to allow for that system to work. So there's a lot of time and money that needs to go into each building and each building has its own specific needs. And so we would have to parcel out a project over summers because it would impact students. So we wouldn't do a project during a school year. So it's both the cost. So that's a very big ticket, $150 million. And it's also the time of creating a project plan of prioritization of buildings and then infrastructure needs as well. I don't know if you have anything else you wanted to add, Leif?
Leif Palmer (12:27): Yeah, I think that it has to do, you mentioned priorities and when you look at our schools and what their needs are, and you might have an aging boiler that might be 40 years old and those are not cheap to replace. So you look at what is more important, making sure that the school can stay warm in the winter time or cool for the few days that it gets to these extreme temperatures. And, and at the end of the day, it comes down to our budget and what we are able to do. Esser funds that we've been able to use in the past few years did help us do some HVAC projects, but ultimately those funds have expired and, and now we're looking elsewhere for energy savings with Energy Trust of Oregon and other opportunities that we have that that we can get paid back for, for projects that we complete.
Curtis Long (13:08): And I think some families maybe don't realize the age of some of our buildings. Some of our families will see Adrienne C. Nelson High School for example, or Happy Valley Middle and Happy Valley Elementary that have been remodeled. But then we have schools that have that 50 plus years south. Seth Lewelling Elementary is an older building View Acres Elementary, and this is just off the top of my head, what is the age range of some of our buildings?
Leif Palmer (13:30): They range from, you know, Milwaukie El Puente is over a hundred years old. Wow. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, there are schools and then we also have on the other side you've got Beatrice Morrow Cannady Elementary School, which was built during the, the 2016 bond. So you've got a range of over a hundred years and that's a lot in terms of infrastructure that needs to be replaced. And you mentioned Happy Valley Middle and Elementary only being from 2008, I believe. Yeah. They just, in the last two years we've replaced three water heaters Wow. At that site. And these aren't your residential water heaters. These are commercial grade water heaters that are expensive to replace and and maintain.
Curtis Long (14:05): So, and, that was part of a 2008 construction project and we're already replacing heaters and things like that.
Teresa Neff-Webster (14:11): Yeah. And we have 22 of our buildings are over 50 years old. And so, um, even a newer building is needing its infrastructure upkeep. You can imagine what our older buildings also gonna need in terms of infrastructure supports.
Curtis Long (14:23): So 22 of our buildings are over 50 years old. Correct. Leif does that present some interesting maintenance issues for our buildings and probably for our maintenance workers? I'm sure there are certain aspects in one school you can crawl in this area. This one you need to stand up in this one, you gotta go in a crawl space. I'm sure our maintenance workers know those inside and out.
Leif Palmer (14:42): Oh yeah. We've got, uh, we've got some, some favorites or not so much favorites when it comes to maintaining our HVAC systems. And when you talk about the older schools have older windows, single plane windows, we've done some upkeep to some improvements to put window film on those older windows that will keep some of the heat out, especially south facing windows. Some of the classrooms that we've mentioned earlier that warm up when different sides of the building get extra heat, a lot of times it's south facing windows rooms that have multiple windows, high ceilings, all that comes into play where, you know, architecturally it might look great, but it might also make it, uh, harder to keep the buildings cool or warm.
Curtis Long (15:20): And Shay that kind of reminds me of one of our segments last year where you were interviewing kind of a lesser known employees around the district and we came across some of the HVAC workers and they were joking because one of them was very tall. One of them not so tall. Yes. Said, oh yes, he goes to those schools. I can't do those. I have to do these because I can only fit in these areas. Yes.
Leif Palmer (15:38): <laugh>, that's Michael and Jeremy. Yeah. <laugh> and they both, they uh, both do a great job, but we do divide out, divide and conquer. And I've been in, in some of those mechanical rooms and, and areas and they're, they're tight. And, uh, and we've actually, even this summer we upgraded at Alder Creek, one of the mechanical areas. It's permanent structures to help them be able to access safely our HVAC systems and to maintain and replace filters.
Curtis Long (16:02): Is it Jeremy who has to go into all the small crawl spaces?
Leif Palmer (16:05): That'd be Michael. Oh, that's Michael. Michael. Yeah, Jeremy. We leave him for the tall stuff.
Curtis Long (16:09): And keeping 32 un-air conditioned schools at a reasonable indoor temperature during extreme heat is a tall order. So far we've addressed perhaps the hottest topic when it comes to district indoor temperatures. Why don't NCSD schools have air conditioning?
Teresa Neff-Webster (16:24): So it's both the cost. So that's a very big ticket, $150 million. And it's also the time of creating a project plan of prioritization of buildings and then infrastructure needs as well
Curtis Long (16:35): Still to come, how does NCSD monitor classroom temperatures across a district spanning more than 40 square miles?
Leif Palmer (16:42): We were checking the temperatures three times a day in all of our sites, different classrooms in each site. So there was, uh, over 130 classrooms that we were monitoring. And we saw as the week progressed that even though we were doing everything we could each day, that base temperature was starting a couple degrees warmer and a couple degrees warmer each day puts you in some temperatures that just aren't suitable for learning.
Curtis Long (17:05): And what cool ways are principals and staff members keeping their students comfortable during hot afternoons?
Greg Harris (17:11): Unlimited fans, you know, some, some classrooms need three fans to move that air around and we know that we're moving hot air around oftentimes, but that breeze, even even with hot air, can make a difference for students in the classroom and move that stagnant air that sometimes comes up. So just making sure we got plenty of popsicles on hand and extra ice. 'cause that ice maker cannot keep up with making sure that our staff have water bottles.
Curtis Long (17:30): Oh, popsicles on hand out at Adrienne C. Nelson High.
Greg Harris (17:32): That's right. That's right.
Curtis Long (17:33): We'll break the ice on the second half of the Proud To Be NCSD podcast right after this.
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Dr. Shay James (18:33): Curtis, it might be interesting to hear a little bit about, they're talking about HVAC systems and what happens in the evening when it's hot and you know, I hear talk about words such as opening the dampers and you know, the air flow and how does air quality factor into that? And really even just things that people don't think about our buses and what the temperatures are of our buses that kids are on and our bus drivers are transporting kids all day. I think that might be helpful for families to know.
Curtis Long (19:02): Yeah let's get to that, uh, of what our facility workers are doing overnight. And Greg, we definitely want to hear from you too because you're working with your custodial staff to try to make sure your building is cool. But on the district level, we'll start there. What are our facilities workers doing overnight? Working really around the clock?
Leif Palmer (19:16): Yeah, so we've got, we use a system that's in place by ClimaTech and that is our DDC control so that this controls, we can look at all of our sites and see the temperature, see what systems are running and put schedule to those systems. So when the heat started coming this summer, we, or even last spring, we ended up implementing a schedule where every night at 1:00 AM actually, it would bring in a hundred percent of outside air. So our, our HVAC systems would be pulling in all the cool air, trying to flush the buildings out as best as possible. Once the school is occupied, we have rules that that state we have to bring in a certain amount of air. So even though, you know, at your house you might close the windows shut everything down at a school, you know, there's balances pressurization CO2 levels that keep us unable to shut something down completely as you might at your home. So even when we bring in all that cold air throughout the middle of the night to early morning, we, as the temperatures are rising throughout the day, we have to bring in a certain amount of air. So inevitably the air temperature rises throughout the day, then you add students and it goes even quicker. But there are things that we do to try to keep those temps down as much as we can.
Dr. Shay James (20:29): And if it doesn't cool down enough in the evening then you're starting from a different place as well.
Leif Palmer (20:34): Yeah, and that's what we ran into last week. We were checking the temperatures three times a day in all of our sites, different classrooms in each site. So there was over 130 Yep. Uh, over 130 classrooms that we were monitoring. And we saw as the week progressed that even though we were doing everything we could each day, that base temperature was starting a couple degrees warmer and a couple degrees warmer each day puts you in some temperatures that just aren't suitable for learning.
Teresa Neff-Webster (21:01): And just to add, I think we are very data oriented and we wanna make sure that we're making decisions based on what we're seeing and not just kind of what we're hearing. And so we made sure that we started our monitoring before the heat wave actually happened. So those 130 spaces that Leif mentioned, we were able to see, okay, using the cooler air at night, we're getting two to 5% down every evening. And then as the heat continued to rise, we would see that that change was not getting to the same amount. So we really were able to predict and know that by Friday our spaces were gonna be starting at a very hot, hot temperature. And we continued to monitor actually on Friday and Saturday to verify our prediction was correct in that we did find most of the classrooms that ended in the high eighties on Thursday, they were starting without any people in the spaces and the low eighties. So you can only imagine to life's point, if you add 10 to 15 people into a, a space like that, that increases the degrees to two to 5%. You have movement, you have outdoor doors opening, et cetera, you're going to get to a very unhealthy space very quickly. So just kind of to reiterate our thinking of why we got to the decision, what we recommended to superintendent.
Curtis Long (22:13): So Greg, Leif and Theresa and Shay, they're watching at the district office level. You are in a school. What kinds of things are you and your staff doing throughout the day or before the day starts to make the school as comfortable as possible for students and staff?
Greg Harris (22:26): Yeah, definitely. One of the things I do whenever it's gonna be a warm day, I have a couple of thermometers in my office. And so when I get there in the morning, I will go around the building and just check real temperatures. Um, it's one thing to know that the, you know, the entire building feels this way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And to just go into the different classroom spaces, the places where I know it's hot, the places where I know it's cool and just kind of get a reading because the morning temperature will likely then predict how the, how the rest of the day is gonna go on days where it's gonna be very hot. We have fans essentially we have decided that we unlimited fans, you know, some, some classrooms need three fans to move that air around and we know that we're moving hot air around oftentimes.
Greg Harris (23:02): But that breeze even in even with hot air, can make a difference for students in the classroom and move that stagnant air that sometimes comes up. We have cooling places, we do have some places in each of the buildings, our air conditioned because they're typically used during the summer, which is when we would see the high temperatures. So the office spaces, the library is usually air conditioned and we, um, have the benefit of having a well air conditioned auditorium space as well. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so for teachers to be able to come into the office, come into our staff room during their prep periods and during breaks and just kind of take, take a break and cool down. Also, we've offered to our staff as well that if they ever need to just step out of the classroom and take a break to cool down, um, administration can come in, we can watch their classroom for a few minutes as they get cool as well.
Greg Harris (23:43): So as an administrative team, we take a look at our calendars and we make sure that we start clearing unnecessary things from our calendars to help support whole classrooms. We have a few staff members who indicated that because of some health concerns, the heat exacerbates those health concerns and so they could take the whole classroom into the auditorium. It's not the best place, not the most conducive to learning, but it's definitely much cooler. And so they could take, we can fit several classes in there. They have to adapt their strategies that they're doing in the classroom for that even because taking care of our employees who are the ones that are taking care of the students in the classroom, um, that can make a big difference. So just making sure we got plenty of popsicles on hand and extra ice. 'cause that ice maker cannot keep up with making sure that our staff have water bottles.
Curtis Long (24:21): Oh, popsicles on hand out at Adrienne C. Nelson High.
Greg Harris (24:24): That's right, that's right.
Curtis Long (24:24): Uh, and Greg did mention the auditorium is air conditioned. Now elementary schools don't necessarily have an auditorium, but they do have spaces that are air conditioned. Let's talk about where the air conditioning does exist in some of our schools.
Leif Palmer (24:37): Yep. Most of our schools all over the elementary schools have air conditioning space. Most of the offices are air conditioned and either cafeterias and or libraries also have air conditioning. So there is spaces for people to get out of the heat at all of our sites. And as Greg mentioned earlier, the fans are box fans. Are they, they're all over the district. <laugh>, uh, we've, we track how many box fans we've purchased and we've purchased hundreds of them over the past couple years. And just this year we've delivered hundreds throughout the district. Last week I know there was over three dozen delivered to different sites that asked for 'em. So we do ask the schools to reach out to us and let us know if they need more box fans for classrooms.
Curtis Long (25:19): So teachers are not supplying their own fans, they're not waiting in line at Home Depot to equip their classrooms? No. We are providing those as a school district, correct?
Teresa Neff-Webster (25:25): That's correct.
Greg Harris (25:26): Also, I just wanted to point out that, you know, when, when it's uncomfortable because of the heat in the classroom, um, we have really talented educators who adapt the lessons. Typically we are a movement heavy environment. We know that students getting up and around the classroom, having movement breaks, being able to uh, meet with different groups of students in the classroom is the best instructional practices. But in time when the classroom is very, very hot, our teachers are very talented and they know to adapt that lesson to keep students in their seats more, to keep the movement light, to provide more breaks and just kind of slow things down. And then all of that with a hefty dose of patience, um, helps us get through these days that are, that are not comfortable.
Curtis Long (26:02): Well, speaking about a heavy dose of patience, one group of people we have not talked about are bus drivers. Yeah. They're on those buses with kids and it's extremely hot there. Teresa, you also supervise our transportation department. What types of things are happening at the transportation department and with our bus drivers who are doing their very best to keep students comfortable on those buses?
Teresa Neff-Webster (26:20): Yes, they were absolutely outstanding last week. They were just so calm and professional and welcoming to our students, which is really fantastic. And as the temperatures started to rise, our transportation department made popsicles was the theme of the week. They had popsicles on the buses, they had cooling cloths for students for the back of their necks and they also have temperature controls that they see what the temperatures in a bus was. And on Thursday when it was 97 degrees outside, it was 117 on our buses. Oh my goodness. So there was a lot of, uh, precautions taken, making sure there's enough water on buses for the students, et cetera. And that was another indicator that we took into account when we were thinking about Friday.
Curtis Long (27:00): Oh my goodness. Big round of applause for our bus drivers often forgot about that they, that they have their mobile classrooms, that their school continues, that once those kids get on the bus Yep. Until they get to their front doors or wherever they're going after school.
Teresa Neff-Webster (27:12): Another thing that I would also add is when we're thinking about the heat and we think about safety of our students, we have a significant amount of our students that are actually walked to school and leaving the hot building and then walking home during the hottest part of the day was also a consideration that we thought through.
Dr. Shay James (27:29): And sometimes up to a mile and a half walking. Yes. Is that correct?
Teresa Neff-Webster (27:32): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's correct.
Curtis Long (27:33): So Shay, it ends up coming across your desk when the decision whether or not to cancel school for the following day. That's coming across Thursday. Yep. Probably starting to think about this early Thursday. It's not like the decision came down at four o'clock Thursday and we hadn't thought about it before then. Take us through Thursday. How does it work in your office and with your team as you're getting this information from around the district?
Dr. Shay James (27:53): Yeah, I think it's important to say that we're looking at the data well before the days that we know it's supposed to happen. I'm in contact with our chief of operations. She's monitoring the temperatures, she's working with her teams to see is all our equipment working correctly? What do things look like? And we start having those conversations early in the week as Teresa suggested, we're reviewing the data, we're seeing what our buildings look like, we're reviewing the spot checks of the places. I work with an amazing talented team that brings the information to us to make the best decision that we given the information that we have at the time. And so we meet multiple times during the day. We were meeting multiple times on Wednesday. We were meeting multiple times on Thursday to make those decisions with the data. In addition to that, I am also in contact with other superintendents across our regional area to see what decisions are you making? What is happening in your place? What's the differences, right? Do you have air conditioning in your buildings versus us? What are you doing with athletics? And so we really are again, taking the information that we have, the data that we have, and making the best decision that we can at the time. And sometimes the weather takes a change on us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that we didn't expect. And what we know is as long as we are prioritizing safety for kids, then we make the right decision.
Curtis Long (29:15): And as we look back, and Teresa, you were mentioning before we started that you were looking at temperatures on Friday. We didn't have kids in school and it's probably a good thing we didn't have kids in school. Because you two, Leif and Theresa and others in the facilities department, you can remotely monitor the temperature of exact classrooms, right?
Teresa Neff-Webster (29:31): That's correct.
Curtis Long (29:32): Different classrooms around the district. What were you seeing on Friday?
Teresa Neff-Webster (29:34): Yes, we were seeing our prediction coming true in that we without people in the spaces, the classrooms that we were auditing were in the high eighties and even the cooling spaces that we have in some of our buildings, they were struggling to keep cool on Friday as well. Again, a lot of this has to do with the fact that the air quality alert that was on there was a haze over our district. And that means there wasn't any air coming into our building that would actually circulate it into cooling space. The air that was coming in was even hotter than the air that was actually in the classrooms to begin with. So it just continues to rise. We're very thankful for the fact that Saturday took a big turn. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it even see Saturday morning our classroom spaces were going down and then we're looking at it. Our HVAC technicians are looking at this on a daily basis and we're back to a regulated normal temperature in our classrooms right now.
Leif Palmer (30:26): And as you mentioned, the, the air that we have to bring in on that hazy day was, was warm. The air gets sucked in through our HVAC systems that are located on our roofs and our roofs are hot. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. The TPO roofing, it retains heat. So you're pulling in, it might be a hundred degrees, but on that top of that roof it's likely 110 plus. mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so you're pulling in the warmest air possible that you're having to mix with the cooler air that's already inside with the schools.
Curtis Long (30:52): Alright, as we start to wrap things up, and I think we've given families a good inside view of what happened on that Thursday, September 6th, and why the closure on Friday, September 7th and Shay, as we wrap things up, I've gotta imagine how thankful you are to work with a team like this as you're getting advice and updates from around the district to have a team like Teresa and Leif and their team working and to have a principal like Greg along with all of our other administrators who are so student-centered and trying to keep students comfortable. You've gotta be thankful for the amount of work that goes in, not only during a a unique week like last week, but every week in our district.
Dr. Shay James (31:26): Absolutely. The amount of professionalism that is brought forward in looking at situations like this, as you said, keeping students at the center of our decisions, safety is a priority. I could not be more grateful and more thankful for the team that we have. And so I will take a second to say thank you to some of those that are sitting in this room and thank you to the others that are not with us as well. North Clackamas School District is in good hands.
Curtis Long (31:51): It certainly is in good hands and you heard it here. It's our first podcast of season number three and we're talking heat. Hopefully families, you've got a better indication of what happened behind the scenes and what happens in our school district when that extreme heat hits our area. Greg Harris, Teresa Neff-Webster, Leif Palmer, and of course, Dr. Shay. James, thanks so much for being with us today.
All guests (32:12): Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.
Curtis Long (32:16): Thanks for listening to The Proud To Be NCSD podcast. In North Clackamas, we know that education is a community effort and we're so thankful that you and your family are a part of our community. Until next time, remember, there are always great things to see wherever you go in NCSD.
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