DANE COUNTY, Wis. — Record-breaking temperatures swept across a large part of Wisconsin on Wednesday, with heat warnings in place through Thursday.
The extreme heat prompted many schools in Dane County to close early and move sporting events and practices.
Kevin Rae is the president of Edgewood Highschool of the Sacred Heart. It’s a school that was built in the 1920s and is not fully outfitted with air conditioning.
“In some of our non-air-conditioned places we put these fans in to help with air circulation to improve breathing and the overall health and wellbeing of our students,” said Rae.
Rae said the school has 623 students this year. Those students would normally be eating lunch in Alumni Hall, learning in classrooms and interacting with friends.
Because of the extreme heat warning, Wednesday was much different.
“We got our students in a little earlier and they left at 11:15 a.m. so they are safe and have time to focus on their academic work in a safe environment,” said Rae.
On the other side of Dane County, Nick Conrad, the athletic director at Waunakee High School, was forced to shift sporting events and practices around for the safety and wellbeing of the students.
“Most teams are going early in the morning, versus in the afternoon for practices,” Conrad said. “Some teams are going at night when the sun has gone down.”
Conrad said canceling practices was not an option.
(Spectrum News 1/Cody Taylor)
“Certain sports you are looking at, they do compete once a week and so they have a limited amount of time that they are able to have contact with kids for practices, they are able to do it safely, we have the trainer we are communicating with,” he said.
On top of rescheduling practice times, Conrad said kids were given extra water breaks and shortened practice times to work around the extreme temperatures.
Both school officials said it is important for parents and guardians to check in with their child’s school for updates on class and event schedule changes.