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As triple-digit temperatures bake some parts of California, two new laws aim to help educate students about heat illness and protect them from it.
This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that will require the state Board of Education to consider teaching students about the symptoms of heat illness in schools. Another law, which the governor signed in 2024 with a key deadline this month, requires schools to come up with rules for outdoor activities when there are extreme weather events like heat waves.
Both are promising, low-cost measures. But neither requires the state to spend money on the things that experts say would actually make schools safer: updated HVAC, shade structures, a funded health curriculum. The governor’s office says as of now it has no plans to propose funding for an updated health framework.
The laws “demonstrate that children in California are already being harmed by extreme heat,” said Sarah Matsumoto, director of policy and government affairs for Green Schoolyards America. “It’s not a future problem anymore. There definitely needs to be a comprehensive plan to protect children from extreme heat.”
A student’s experience becomes law
In 2022, during a record-breaking, triple-digit heat wave in Sacramento, the air conditioning in Natalie Rubio’s school cafeteria gave out. She was in the fourth grade; she and her classmates had to eat lunch outside.
Now 13, Natalie recalls some of her peers feeling sick – flushed with red cheeks and headaches, symptoms of heat illness. She brought her experience, and her idea for a bill promoting heat education, to the legislature: Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Palmdale Republican, wrote Assembly Bill 1653.
Adding guidance on how to teach heat illness in schools is a “simple, common-sense step,” Lackey said in a legislative hearing about the bill.
“This bill creates no mandates,” said Lackey. “It simply promotes awareness and prevention. Because sometimes the most powerful way to protect our students is by giving them the knowledge to protect themselves.”
Heat illness is a growing concern for students, parents and educators as heat waves become stronger and longer. In California, 618 children ages 5 to 17 went to the emergency room in 2024 because of heat illness, according to Tracking California, a health surveillance tool by the Public Health Institute. That’s about a 30% jump from the previous year.
California students lost more than 40,000 hours of instructional time in the 2025-26 school year due to closures and disruptions from extreme heat, according to data collected by UndauntedK12. Extreme heat accounted for 73% of weather-related school closures in the fall semester.
Natalie envisions short, interactive lessons tailored to each grade level and reminders during heat waves. “I want schools to teach every student the signs and symptoms of heat illness and how to respond in a memorable way,” the middle school student said.
Lackey’s law doesn’t guarantee new lessons — that depends on when the state next updates its health education framework, which last happened in 2019.
The Board of Education could incorporate heat illness lessons into its health education framework – a voluntary guide for teaching about subjects including nutrition, physical activity, drugs and alcohol and mental health – the next time it considers updates. But there’s no further update scheduled, and doing so again “must be initiated and funded by the legislature.” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor, referred questions about whether the administration would fund a new framework to the education board. The board did not respond to CalMatters’ questions by deadline.
Stephanie Seidmon, a project manager for UndauntedK12, said the nonprofit educational advocacy group supported the law “because this is a potentially low-cost solution in a time when our state budget is (limited).”
If an eventual update does include heat illness education, it could make a real difference in the number of kids that end up in the nurse’s office with serious symptoms, said Rosemarie Dowell, government relations committee chair for the California School Nurses Organization.
Students “might not realize that this headache or this dizziness might not just be feeling tired but could be a sign of heat illness,” Dowell said. “That can empower them to react for themselves, react for somebody else, to encourage them to get water, to find that shade or to tell an adult.”
A push for more protections
The state Department of Education offers no official guidance on how hot is too hot for students to be outside, or how teachers should respond to unusually high temperatures. The department refers schools to a list of resources, including the state health department’s guidance on extreme heat, defined as longer than two days and nights.
Nationally, an estimated 9,000 high school athletes suffer from and receive treatment for exertional heat illness every year, with most incidents occurring in the month of August. The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, sets and can enforce heat-related policies, including rules about practice times and hydration breaks for student athletes.
Senate Bill 1248, authored by Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Bakersfield Democrat, requires schools to adopt protocols for outdoor activities, such as sports practice and recess, during extreme weather. This includes setting criteria for when schools should cancel outdoor activity. The death of 12-year-old Yahshua Robinson, who in August 2023 collapsed and died during P.E. class in Lake Elsinore, prompted that law.
The law requires schools to develop heat-safety plans that include monitoring weather forecasts, designating safe indoor alternatives to outdoor activities, and training staff to recognize heat stress, among other measures. The law required schools to have those plans ready by July 1 of this year.
In a legislative hearing in 2024, Yahshua’s mother said her son died following dangerous school rules.
“It was in the nineties outside that day, and even the best and highly trained athletes wouldn’t run in it,” she said. “Yet Yahshua’s class of middle schoolers were made to run in that heat. Physical education should happen only in environments conducive for physical activity.”
The funding gap that laws don’t touch
School and environmental advocates want state leaders to go further by investing in better cooling systems and more shady areas for children to play. But limited state and school funding stands in the way.
“Many of our school buildings were built before the era of extreme heat fueled by climate change,” Seidmon said. “Our kids are playing on playgrounds, in schoolyards and on fields that don’t have shade … So it’s critical that our school buildings and grounds protect our children from extreme heat.”
Emily Penner, an associate professor of education at UC Irvine, is researching the effects of heat exposure on school children and how schools are adapting to warmer days. Response, she’s learning, varies widely by region — schools that have long struggled with extreme heat are more likely to try new approaches, such as using more heat-resilient materials for playgrounds and prioritizing air conditioning in school buses.
Adaptation efforts like shading infrastructure and HVAC in most schools can make a significant difference, Penner says. At the same time, these projects require funding that many schools may not have.
“This is a case where we have some pretty concrete things we know we need to do, like put HVAC at most schools across the state, and now we have to kind of figure out how to marshal political support for something like that,” Penner said.
Money on the table, but not enough
Even where funding exists, schools are finding it hard to secure or insufficient to meet the need. In 2020, the legislature created a state program, known as CalShape, funded by utility ratepayers, which has helped schools pay for assessments and upgrades to their air conditioning systems. But the program administrator, the California Energy Commission, abruptly paused applications in 2024, citing budget constraints. The state will return the leftover $200 million to investor-owned utilities if the Legislature doesn’t act by the end of the year.
In 2024, Californians voted to approve Proposition 2, a bond measure that earmarks $10 billion for school facilities. But school modernization projects already demand more than the funding provides.
Voters also approved Proposition 4, which sends another $10 billion to climate projects statewide. That includes $50 million for the state’s Urban Forestry Program, which funnels money to local projects that add green space, including in schools.
“Compared to the federal government and many states, California is one of the leaders in this issue,” Matsumoto said. “And we are still not collectively meeting the moment.”
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
