When Aida Maravilla was on the hunt for a new apartment in 2021, she had one major goal: Find a place with air conditioning.
She learned the hard way that cool air is more than an amenity. When her daughter was an infant she remembers the baby waking up in tears from the heat. Maravilla would soothe her with a wet cloth and leave her in just a diaper to keep her cool.
It’s what led her to her latest apartment in Panorama City four years ago when it was time to return to Los Angeles. Apartments in the hotter San Fernando Valley typically have air conditioning.
“It’s just such a comfort, being able to do different tasks and not have to be worried about that,” Maravilla said.
Still, there have been moments where the electricity bill has skyrocketed, and she’s had to deal with asking for assistance.
According to survey data from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, families — across all income levels, races, ethnicities and regions — are increasingly considering how extreme weather conditions affect them. More than half of families with young children across the state are worried about its effects, according to data from the center’s RAPID Survey Project, which examines early childhood and family well-being. Heat, in particular, is a significant concern.
Whether at home or at school, outdoor playtime is reduced significantly to avoid the harsh sun, according to the survey. Daytime outings often revolve around air conditioning or water play to avoid overheating. And parents remain on high alert to ensure their young children are hydrating and taking breaks, as they are too little to understand those needs themselves.
Maravilla sends her children to school with hats and a bottle of sunscreen in their lunch boxes — and they still come home red-faced and sweaty during the hottest months.
She is also among a growing group of parents who are pushing for schools to do more to help children cope with heat.
How extreme heat affects young kids
Babies and children under age 6 are more vulnerable to heat exhaustion and heatstroke than most adults. Their bodies heat up faster, they spend more time outside and they don’t always know how to recognize or communicate discomfort they may be experiencing because of the high temperatures, said Abigail Stewart-Kahn, a clinical social worker who is managing director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood.
There are also developmental and emotional effects that stem from the instability families may experience when routines get interrupted amid extreme heat, she added.
Roughly a quarter of families with young children in California have experienced at least one extreme weather event between 2022 and 2024, according to the survey. That’s not including the wildfires that ravaged the Los Angeles region in January, displacing tens of thousands of residents and disrupting child care.
The survey involved more than 1,000 parents of children under age 6, who ranked limited outdoor playtime, negative health effects and home damage as the largest issues their families must navigate.
The consequences of extreme weather became much more real for Lauren Quan-Madrid once the Eaton fire hit in Altadena. She was worried for the well-being of her then second-grade and preschool-age children as smoke wafted through the air and toward their home in Highland Park.
But even now, six months later, the kids still ask, “Are we safe? Is there gonna be a fire?”
“Not only are we trying to just endure the heat, but we’re also seeing what’s happening — what probably for the rest of my life I’m going to have to endure — and my children and my grandchildren,” Quan-Madrid said.
Parents push school districts to step up on climate
Parents have begun to push cities, schools and child-care centers to take steps to provide children relief from the heat, Stewart-Kahn said.
Community organizations such as Reclaim Our Schools L.A. and Nature for All have encouraged parents such as Maravilla to learn about what needs to happen on campus to better safeguard against heat dangers: They’ve pushed for more green spaces with trees and landscaping, shade structures and updated heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems.
That progress is coming, albeit slowly. L.A. Unified and other school districts across the state are factoring plans to deal with extreme heat.
After years of pressure — and extended record-breaking heat waves in recent years — LAUSD released a plan in April 2024 to upgrade more than 600 schools to include more plants, trees, grass, mulch and permeable pavers that would provide some relief from the heat. The projects are expected to be completed in 2035 at the earliest.
The plan puts to use $58 million that was allocated for outdoor education initiatives such as greening in June 2022 and relies on grants as well as other funding avenues. It will require an estimated investment of up to $3 billion to complete.
Last year, a parent coalition successfully lobbied for Pasadena Unified to commit a portion of Measure R, its $900-million school facilities bond, for schoolyard greening. The district is also relying on community partnerships and grants to transform their outdoor areas from asphalt to native gardens and natural play areas. The renovations in turn support learning opportunities for children in agriculture, for example.
In 2022, Long Beach passed a bond for funding to modernize its campuses, some of which has been used to provide shade structures at some schools. The district is pushing forward with those efforts to provide shelter from the sun, create more green spaces and get HVAC systems installed across its schools.
As pillars of the community, schools should be part of community relief, said Victor Sánchez, the executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and dad to an incoming transitional kindergartner, who he hopes will one day be able to depend on school for that safety. The alliance has been working with LAUSD to prioritize and fund climate-friendly projects across the district.
But much more needs to be done, he said.
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
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