Member Spotlight: Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) and Teens Lead @ Work (TL@W)
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Teens Lead @ Work (TL@W) peer leaders with their thermometers, trained and ready to collect classroom temperature data.
This summer, MassCOSH’s Teens Lead @ Work Program (TL@W) was featured in the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) e-newsletter for organizing around the impacts of heat stress in schools. Teens Lead @ Work (TL@W) is a program of MAAP’s partner, the MassCOSH. TL@W helps youth develop organizing skills, connect with other teen workers, and promote safe, healthy work. TL@W chose to tackle heat stress and climate change in Boston schools after fellow students developed rashes, headaches, and dehydration due to extreme heat in their classrooms.
Last year, a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that student performance drops when temperatures rise, with a clear connection between decreased learning and a lack of air-conditioning in classrooms. The impact of heat on student achievement is three times greater for low-income, Black and Hispanic students as for White students. Environmental health research also shows that extreme heat events – projected to become more and more frequent – can significantly worsen childhood asthma, and are associated with increased hospitalization for asthma attacks.
Ilannysh Rodriguez, a recent Boston high school graduate and TL@W peer leader, has asthma. “We learned about different asthma triggers – clutter, lack of ventilation, poor climate control and indoor air quality – and we realized we could list them looking around our own schools,” she shared. “In Boston, many of the school buildings are older and not kept up to date, with holes in the walls and floors. These collect dust and lead to leaks – and more asthma triggers.”
“Although you are young, and people don’t think you’re important, you are doing important work. These issues that affect young people, especially young people of color, are not getting the attention they need. Don’t give up.”
Ilannysh and her fellow TL@W leaders noted that students from low-income communities and students of color are most often affected by these conditions, and by extreme heat. “We’ve had days where the classroom temperature climbs to 100 degrees,” Ilannysh says. At some schools, she recalls, water fountains were non-functional on those same days, and students suffered from dehydration.
TL@W has been working hard on their campaign to address heat stress in Boston schools, building partnerships with school professionals, other students, and the Boston Teachers’ Union. In early June, they testified in support of Bill H.530, an act creating a commission to study allowable temperatures in schools. They’ve been collecting classroom temperature data as part of an in-depth research project supported by a Tufts University Tisch Scholar, as well as developing proposals for policies they see as crucial. “If not air-conditioned classrooms, we think schools should have ‘heat days’ and early dismissal the way they do for snow days,” Ilannysh says. TL@W students know this is possible - in Baltimore, schools without air-conditioned classrooms dismiss students early if room temperatures climb to 85°F by 10:30am. This winter, TL@W will also conduct a comprehensive analysis of school heat policies and strategies around the country to help inform their organizing.
While TL@W’s efforts are local, MassCOSH has received calls from several school districts hoping to replicate their work nationwide. When asked about advice that she would give youth interested in social justice organizing, Ilannysh takes a deep breath before speaking. “Although you are young, and people don’t think you’re important, you are doing important work,” she says. “These issues that affect young people, especially young people of color, are not getting the attention they need. Don’t give up.”