Jamani’s Jeers: OHSweaty

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Oswego High School: home of the sweaty teens. Not only sweaty, but smelly too. Sorry girls and boys—drowning yourselves in cologne and perfume will not be enough to cover up the scent of your musk after running 10 laps in the Fieldhouse.

But in all reality, you aren’t the ones at fault. Our school district is to blame for being too incompetent to call a proper HVAC technician to distribute cool air across the school in the midst of what I would call the hottest back-to-school season in my 11 years of education. I mean, how are students supposed to survive if it’s sweltering in their geometry class, but freezing the next hour in English? I wake up in the morning and instead of dressing for the weather outside, I have to make sure I simultaneously have shorts and tees for my first hour gym class, and sweats and hoodies for my fourth hour guided study. And yeah, I understand, this district has literally no money, but yet I entered my marketing class on the first day only to see 30 new computers.

Old people complain, “Back in my day, we had no air conditioning or heat! You just had to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter.” But great-aunt Martha, it’s not your day anymore, so we shouldn’t have to suffer! I know for a fact that if they had the technological advances to have working air conditioning in schools, our parents would just tell us to grin and bear it. Oh, that’s just my mom? Never mind, then.

If not at home, school should be the one place where students are able to access things like internet, food, education (obviously) and air conditioning. Many people welcome the return of school because they know they’ll once again be able to use these resources after spending the summer melting due to global warming that “doesn’t exist.” But when you come back to school and don’t even have the opportunity to be cool and refreshed for seven hours a day, school loses meaning if you’re not a stellar student or receiving scholarship offers from D1 schools for your athletic abilities.

The lack of air conditioning also causes students to become distracted, because who isn’t worrying about whether or not their sweat stains are visible? I know I do, which takes your attention away from teachers (if you’re listening to them in the first place).

Hopefully, the administration takes notice of their students’ struggles and decide to call a handyman before winter comes, or they’ll definitely be facing my wrath under four layers of clothes.