Extreme weather impacts over 10 million students nationwide: 2024-25 school year data reveals urgency of campus resilience building
A recent analysis by the nonprofit organization UndauntedK12 shows that in the 2024-25 school year, over 9 million public school students nationwide were affected by extreme weather events such as wildfires, floods, and extreme heat, involving 10,000 schools. The organization calls on school districts and state leaders to take proactive measures to enhance campus climate resilience and utilize federal energy tax credits for facility modernization.
A recent analysis by the nonprofit organization UndauntedK12 shows that during the 2024-25 school year, more than 9 million public school students across the United States were affected by extreme weather events such as wildfires, floods, and extreme heat, impacting about 10,000 schools nationwide. The organization is dedicated to helping schools address climate change challenges.
The impact of extreme weather on educational operations
UndauntedK12 points out that extreme weather continues to disrupt the normal conduct of educational activities. To this end, school districts and state-level leaders should take forward-looking measures to enhance schools' resilience to specific climate-related events and fully utilizefederal energy tax creditspolicies to modernize campuses and strengthen their ability to withstand severe weather.
The organization emphasizes that developing management plans for energy efficiency and indoor air quality, along with modernizing HVAC systems, is one of the main ways schools can reduce weather-related instructional disruptions.
2025-26 school year: Nearly 500,000 students affected by heat-related school closures
Entering the 2025-26 school year, extreme heat has led to school closures or early dismissals affecting nearly 500,000 students. UndauntedK12's analysis notes that these instructional disruptions occurred almost entirely in northern U.S. states, mainly because local school buildings generally lack reliable air conditioning.
In recent years, other reports have also documented the ongoing impact of climate change on school operations. Weather-related disruptions include school cancellations, early dismissals, and delayed openings. For example, in California, UndauntedK12 found that during the 2025-26 school year, about 70,500 students lost more than 740,000 instructional hours due toextreme weather eventscumulatively.
Instructional loss and financial burden
According to a report released in 2025 by the research and assessment company NWEA, on days when schools closed due to hurricanes and wildfires, each day of closure corresponded to an average of 3.6 days of instructional loss. This calculation is based on state-level end-of-year standardized test data, covering Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Matthew, and California wildfires between 2009 and 2017.
Extreme weather not only affects instructional progress but also exacerbates emotional stress for students and staff, and can cause financial damage to schools, NWEA's research points out. The financial burden mainly comes from repairing damaged or destroyed school buildings. For example, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, repairs to more than 100 damaged or destroyed schools in the New Orleans community took 18 years and cost a total of $2 billion.
Recommendations for enhancing campus climate resilience
To help schoolsrespond to future climate-related events, UndauntedK12 offers the following recommendations:
- Protect indoor air quality and lower classroom temperatures.By developing energy efficiency and indoor air quality management plans and modernizing HVAC systems, schools can proactively create learning environments conducive to student health, well-being, and academic performance.
- Prepare for extreme weather responses.UndauntedK12 and other organizations provide resources that can help administrators plan responses to climate-related events and learn from other school systems that have successfullyrecovered from severe weather disruptions.
- Maximize funding for facility improvements.In addition to leveraging existing federal energy tax credits, school districts can develop financing and funding plans to prepare for facility modernization projects and take other strategic steps to invest in healthy school buildings.
- Teach students about climate impacts.Free resources such asSeeds to Solutionsprovide instructional materials that help educators teach students about environmental issues such as food waste, water use, and wildfire management.