“Civility and discipline” a new CAQ motto
The CAQ has plans to boost civility and discipline in schools, including a return to vouvoiement.
QMI is also looking at the effects of air conditioning in schools, pointing out several new school buildings with no AC*. There are other articles on the subject Sunday, including one that says students don’t do as well when it’s hot.
Here’s a practical scenario where global warming shows up. In the past it would not have been felt necessary to air condition schools, since students would be off during the hottest months. Now, anytime from April to October can turn oppressively hot.
*including the entirely secular École Saint‑Nom‑de‑Jésus and École Saint‑Raymond in Montreal.
Ephraim 14:38 on 2024-09-08 Permalink
A new school should have been built with geothermal, which would have covered heating, cooling and hot water at a extremely low cost
Joey 18:17 on 2024-09-08 Permalink
We built a brand new school recently and (a) didn’t make it account for air conditioning and (b) also named it St-Nom-de-Jesus? Based on the photo it doesn’t look like a four-year old building (certainly the entrance) but I’m certain the Journal wouldn’t mislead its readers.
bob 18:25 on 2024-09-08 Permalink
The main reason that schools were designed without air conditioning until relatively recently was cost, which was also the reason that virtually nothing else had air conditioning – homes, office buildings, businesses, civic buildings, religious buildings, schools, etc. – not even hospitals (some of which still have janky retrofits, or parts with no air conditioning at all). This is what made “air climatisé” a selling point for brasseries and movie theaters.
Cost is why schools still don’t have air conditioning – notice how many of the schools listed have air conditioning for their administrators, but not for their students (thus not for their teachers for most of the day as well). It is a choice, made by the nullities that run the education system and the government that contrives its mediocrity.
The average temperature, and the lows and highs, have been extremely consistent for the entire time we have temperature records for Montreal, going back well over a century. It has not gotten perceptibly hotter, and the number of hotter than average days has not increased by much.
But air conditioning is not only for cooling on very hot days. It is for air quality, which includes cooling on merely warm days, which can develop into hot days in a classroom with 35 people in it. And without ventilation, sealed up in winter the air quality approximates conditions at the bottom of a winter boot worn on a summer day.
SMD 20:46 on 2024-09-08 Permalink
Pure theatre. Meanwhile hundreds of immigrants were just informed that their francisation classes were simply cancelled, due to budget cuts at the Ministry of Education (https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/chroniques/2024-09-06/prendre-soin-de-nos-immigrants.php). Uniforms and vouvoiement are a distraction.
Nicholas 01:30 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
M. Legault a affirmé que le manque de respect envers les professeurs est “un problème de société […] qu’on retrouve dans les sociétés industrialisées”.
Presented without comment.
But I will comment on the next sentence, in which the lack of respect towards police and politicians is pointed out. It’s an interesting comparison (and contrast) to teachers. By respect, some people want to be treated with courtesy, while others want to be treated as authority.
Lastly, I get why you have an old building with a boiler and can’t easily add air conditioning. But any new building has got to have a heat pump, right? So it can do hot and cold, right? Why aren’t they building a system that can both take heat out of and put into schools? I guess I did present a comment.
su 08:12 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
Nicholas,
The thought of heat pump noise pollution, irks many of us who can no longer open bedroom windows on hot summer nights due to these ” green” monstrosities proliferating.
dhomas 08:44 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
Saint-Nom-de-Jésus school is not a new school. It was renovated from about 2015 to 2020. But the school and building have been there for as long as I can remember. City records state it’s been there since 1939. Maybe the JdeM is playing with the “presque neuve” descriptor of the school? Still, in the article they say “Age du bâtiment: 4 ans” which is just plain false. Also, if you look at the Google Maps view, you can see that they actually removed some AC window units during the renovations. They also have some pretty cool 360 views of the inside of the school on Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/t2imYJhMwyk8GusE9
You can tell the interior is new-ish, but it looks kinda like how a new school would have been built in the 80s.
Joey 09:40 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
Thanks @dhomas, I knew the Journal was full of shit. No way that’s a “new” building; HVAC and plumbing have got to be the most complicated and costly things to Reno in an old institutional building like that. Heat pumps are great, but at, what, $3K a pop there just isn’t enough budget to retrofit every classroom.
Not that it’s a great excuse. We regularly have heat waves in May and June, which happens to be when the government conducts the ministerial exams that serve as a major indicator for the strength of our school system. Some enterprising grad student in education policy, poli sci or economics should do some statistical analysis to determine if students in air conditioned classrooms do better than those sweating out their exams (controlling for demographics and grades, of course).
Chris 10:39 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
su, yeah, they are noisy. All my neighbours have them, and their revving up and revving down were waking me up with windows open in the summer. Just this year I gave up and bought one too.
Mark Côté 11:27 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
I was on the governing board for an elementary school in NDG, and the topic of A/C came up. As others have noted, it would be a massive job, not just the installation of all the ducts and whatnot, but apparently the electrical systems in most, if not all, schools would have to be upgraded as well.
dhomas 12:05 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
I offered to install the portable AC unit from my home office into my wife’s 5th grade classroom. The administration said no because the electrical system could not handle it (it handles the AC in the administration office just fine, though…).
There is a local businessman who’s offered to give 1000 units (for free!) to Quebec schools. We’ll see how that works out.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/12/27/jai-le-pouvoir-de-faire-un-petit-changement-il-veut-donner-1000-thermopompes-pour-rafraichir-les-classes
Mark Côté 13:56 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
@dhomas I’m sure they could handle one unit, but probably not one in every classroom… leading to no one having it, rather than having some be privileged.
Meezly 18:31 on 2024-09-09 Permalink
Interesting but probably not unintentional that mandated civility and air conditioning in schools are in the same post, cuz the CAQ are probably trying to distract from practical and needful things like the latter by making a big thing about the former. You can’t make this crap up!
Kevin 17:47 on 2024-09-10 Permalink
The electrical system at Willingdon used to fail if someone plugged in an electric griddle. The is no way it could handle AC.
As for noise, there are quiet models of AC on the market. They may cost a bit more but it’s worth it.
Joey 11:02 on 2024-09-11 Permalink
@Kevin most co-properties have regulations about the noise output of AC machines (and, often, their location, usually encouraging owners to place them on the roof, where they an hum 24/7 and not bother anyone), and I think most AC units produce volume just below the typical max output, which is something like 50 dB. Then again, 50 dB is a lot if it’s adjacent to your open window, and rules aren’t often followed.