Testimony on A3521

Assembly Labor Committee

May 16, 2024

           Good morning Chairman Verrelli and members of the Labor Committee.  I am Elisabeth Ginsburg, Executive Director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, an organization of 100 New Jersey Public School Districts. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on A3521, the “Occupational Heat-Related Illness and Injury Prevention Program” this morning. 

            A3521 is well-intentioned, but was clearly conceived to apply to manufacturing, construction, landscaping and other industries, not schools. For that reason, as well as for other reasons that I will outline this morning, GSCS opposes the legislation.

            Our members are committed to providing safe environments for our students and employees.  We know that generally speaking, temperatures ranging from 68 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit are optimal, not only for health but learning.  Given the increasing temperatures resulting from global warming, many of our members, like other districts around the state, have already used capital reserve funds, Federal COVID relief money, or funding obtained through bond referendums to improve and upgrade school HVAC systems.  Many more districts wish to undertake similar work, but cannot afford to do so.  

            School districts already have indoor air quality policies that conform to the temperature-related provisions of the Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health (PEOSH) Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Standard lists including: requiring districts to have a written plan to comply with the IAQ Standard and to identify a designated person who is responsible for compliance. It requires districts to establish and follow a preventive maintenance schedule for heating and cooling systems, as well as ensuring that the heating and cooling systems are in proper operating order when temperatures are outside of the range of 68 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit.           

            Bills introduced in New Jersey legislative sessions from 2007 to 2023, required boards of education to adopt policies establishing temperature control standards and guidelines specifically for school district facilities.  The bills were heard by the Senate and Assembly Education committees, but never made it all the way through the legislative process. Former Assemblywoman Mila Jasey championed those legislative efforts, and the process of refining the bills to reduce burdens on districts while shielding students and school employees from heat stress involved a great deal of back-and-forth with stakeholder groups.  Those groups agreed, as we do today, that extreme temperatures in schools are unhealthy.  The main obstacle to change in this area is not lack of concern by educators but lack of legislative commitment to provide the resources necessary to effect substantive changes in schools.

            We share the goal of providing our students with optimal learning environments and are always happy to discuss the means to that end with legislators.  However, we do not believe that this bill is the right vehicle to assist school districts with that effort.