Written By: Emily Rogers, Staff Writer
UNPREDICTABLE: California schools v.s. SoCal’s indecisive weather.
Weather for Southern California has become quite a problem over the last decade, as temperatures get higher and higher every year it poses new obstacles to our everyday lives. At one point the structure of Southern California High Schools highlighted the lower half of the state’s golden weather. With a lack of indoor hallways and lunch areas students were met with the well-known weather almost every time they left the classroom. However, the seemingly popular layout is becoming outdated as temperatures begin to rise and stay high for more extended periods of time. As California’s long-lasting heat waves hit High Schools across the state the students experience firsthand just how inefficient the blueprints of their school really are and how much it affects their everyday lives at school. So how does this weather affect our very own Poly High school, and what challenges are students facing with this ongoing weather crisis?
With the lack of indoor spaces poly students are forced to tough it out through the harsh conditions. Coming fresh out of Covid, students who often took shelter in classrooms struggle between finding shade and the crowding within the main gym. When asking the student population at Poly their thoughts and experiences pertaining to the weather and Poly’s layout, Deshawn Owens (11) states, “It is very limited on shaded spaces where larger groups of students are able to sit. Newer areas of the school such as the bear den and the Polywood bowl have shade but are often times packed with students.”
With the most popular lunch areas being poorly shaded, students choose to stay in direct sunlight on the hot asphalt during lunchtime in order to gain even the slightest distance from others. This isn’t only affecting kids during lunch but anytime they are outside of class. When asked about his opinion regarding the lunchtime problem, Gabriel Alvarado (11) states, “commuting to and around the school has become tedious with the changes in weather.” As going from class to class becomes harder, heat waves are getting strong enough to cause power outages at school. What can California schools and Poly do to combat these dangerous weather conditions?
