In May 2018, Detroit Public Schools Community District school board member Sonya Mays found herself at Michigan’s largest annual political event, pleading with business and political leaders for financial support. The school district faces infrastructural problems it can’t afford to repair — roof leaks, corroded sewage infrastructure, dangerous mold, broken boilers and fire alarm systems, and a lack of air conditioning in aging buildings that leaves classrooms boiling.
“We have several decades of poorly maintained buildings, deferred maintenance and tons of vacant buildings for which there is no clear purpose,” Mays told the audience. “I don’t know that I can overstate how much of a hurdle that has become in consistently educating and providing a safe environment for our students.”
That month, Detroit schools closed 106 mostly unairconditioned buildings early for three days in a row as an unrelenting heat wave descended on the city. The district didn’t always get so hot, but with each year rising temperatures and pollution from local oil refineries put Detroit’s school children — especially those suffering from asthma — at increased risk.
Aside from closing schools early on hot days, the district has also canceled afternoon sports activities and reduced summer school program offerings at schools without A/C. COVID-19 precautions add an additional complication to keeping kids cool. Packing students into the city’s few air-conditioned locations poses concerns, as does public school transportation to those locations, since over a quarter of Detroit households do not own cars.
In the summer of 2020, the community identified improved air conditioning and filtration in schools as a priority project for local oil refiner, Marathon Petroleum, to fund as part of a consent agreement proposed by state regulators after numerous air quality violations.
“Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution,” Nicholas Leonard, attorney for the Detroit-based nonprofit Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, told the Detroit Free Press in 2020. “Air filtration systems have been shown to be a really effective way to limit their exposure to air pollution, as they spend quite a bit of time at school.”
Until polluters help pay, the district will struggle to maintain its crumbling infrastructure as millions of dollars in repairs pile up. Because the district has already borrowed the maximum amount under Michigan law to pay for capital improvements, it can’t issue any more debt to fund necessary construction, including installing and upgrading air conditioning.
And while some Michigan school districts have asked taxpayers to fund air-conditioning installation through municipal bonds, lower-income districts can’t always afford to do so — leading to gaping inequities between the services and learning environments provided to students.
“If you live in a community that has not asked the community for a bond to improve facilities ... you may be in a building that would be difficult to support extended summer learning opportunities for students because the building's not going to be very comfortable for students,” Steve Matthews, superintendent of the Novi Community School District, told the Detroit Free Press in 2021.
A 2018 assessment by engineering consulting firm OHM Advisors found that if DPSCD waited another 10 years to take action, its infrastructure costs could reach nearly $1.5 billion total.
Detroit Community Public School District will incur some of the highest cooling costs in the country. To read more about all of Michigan’s schools, check out the Michigan state page.