Pratt Elementary gets reprieve from the heat

Pratt gets ventilation upgrades after a tumultuous past with heat

By Isabella Caswell  /  The Hubbard School

Pratt Elementary is getting long-awaited ventilation upgrades this summer that will add cooler air to its classrooms.  

Pratt has had a ventilation system, but was identified by the Minneapolis Public School District as needing improvements to classroom ventilation during the pandemic. 

Pratt’s gymnasium and the main offices have air conditioning. All of the classrooms with windows have vertical window units, but the classrooms without windows don’t receive cool air, said Kate Needleman, a school secretary.

When asked how many classrooms at Pratt were windowless with no direct access to air conditioning, Needleman said she did not know.

Needleman said ventilation upgrades mean more equitable air conditioning for all classrooms, and it will be a relief for the classrooms that don’t have ventilation units.

Needleman said all heat-related issues have stemmed from kids not feeling well after coming in from outside versus classrooms that are too warm.

“We’ve had incidents of kids not feeling well when they’ve come back from the park. But other than that, not anything related to being inside the building,” Needleman said.

In the summer of 2022, 14 Minneapolis Public Schools moved to e-learning due to extreme heat, including Pratt. The other schools were Anthony, Anwatin, Field, Hiawatha, Kenny, Kenwood, Lake Harriet Upper and Lower, Longfellow, Northrop, Roosevelt and Sheridan Las Estrellas. 

Those same schools all issued air conditioning reports in 2021, according to the Minneapolis Public Schools website. Out of the MPS’ 97 schools, Anthony, Anwatin, Field, Hiawatha, Kenny, Kenwood, Lake Harriet Upper and Lower, Longfellow, Northrup and Roosevelt do not have air conditioning. 

A 2018 study by UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs on how heat affects learning found heat disproportionately affects minority and low-income students because they are more likely to attend schools without air conditioning. The study found air conditioning almost completely counteracts the negative effects heat has on learning. 

A Minneapolis Public Schools report of the annual racial/ethnic count of students in 2022 showed Pratt Elementary had a student population that was 66.7% Black and 19.4% white. 

Crystina Lugo-Beach, media coordinator for MPS, said the district is working with Xcel Energy to get the new ventilation units working this fall, but an exact date has not been determined. 

A Star Tribune story in 2013 reported that adding cooling to a building as old as Pratt, originally constructed in 1898, is especially challenging and expensive.

The district’s application for another round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding in 2021 planned to allocate $11 million for ventilation upgrades in the district. Those funds, while applied for in 2021, were redirected and only became available in 2023 for the air conditioning upgrade. 

Prior to that, Lugo-Beach said, “the funds were redirected to pay for other projects.”