When a Teacher Ignores Heat Alerts and Even the BOE Can’t Stop Her

I wrote yesterday about how my daughter's tennis club is on even when the temperatures are dangerously high. There is a lot more to the story and I have been fighting to get the club cancelled on dangerously hot days for weeks now. In yesterday's post I shared a photo of a WGBT meter, which indicated the conditions were beyond dangerous.

That photo and the photo in this post were taken on a Thursday in mid-July, when there was a heat stroke alert for Saitama. But there had also been a heatstroke alert the previous day and when club wasn't canceled my husband had made a series of phone calls to the prefectural Board of Education (BOE) and the municipal BOE. That we know of one other parent also rang the municipal BOE and reportedly a concerned neighbor of the Junior High School also rang the municipal BOE, too. 

Both the prefectural and municipal BOE agree that people should pay heed to the heat stroke alerts and guidance and club should be canceled. We were told that both BOEs rang the teacher in question on the Wednesday and asked her to cancel club on hot days. We expected change on the back of that, but much to my disbelief it made no difference. So, my husband followed up with the BOEs on the Thursday to be told, incredulously, that the BOE actually do not have the power to force her to cancel club or make changes, it is ultimately the teacher's choice. And this teacher chooses to put children's life in danger.

What shocks me most is that even after the BOEs stepped in, the teacher continued club as if the heat‑stroke alerts didn’t exist. I can protect my own child by keeping her home, but other families feel trapped by expectations, obligations, or cultural norms. And that leaves their children exposed. A teacher shouldn’t need persuasion to safeguard students’ lives. On days when the heat is dangerous, canceling club should be automatic, not something parents have to fight for.