Missing any school hurts academic progress. But increasingly common weather-related school disruptions—from extreme heat and cold to hurricanes and wildfires—can cause outsized damage to student learning.
A new analysis of student achievement finds that students in grades 3 through 5 lose at least two weeks’ worth of academic growth in math and reading for every week of missed instruction related to extreme weather.
The picture is even bleaker for students in middle school. At that level, the disasters can be even more disruptive, with one week on average associated with nearly three weeks of learning loss in reading and nearly four in math for students in grades 6-8, says the research from the nonprofit assessment and research group NWEA.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, missing school leads to negative outcomes, but those negative outcomes can be more sizable than one might expect for just one week of school loss,” said Megan Kuhfeld, the director of growth modeling and analytics for NWEA, which released the meta-analysis, part of an ongoing study it’s conducting.
The findings are particularly notable in light of the last few months of climate-related disasters—devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and the flooding and destruction caused by Hurricane Helene.
Study bolsters other gauges of the schooling impact of disasters
They also add to a burgeoning body of research on the impact of disasters on academics.
In a 2023 study, Isaac Opper, an economist at RAND Corp. and professor at the Pardee Rand Graduate School, tracked damage to both property and “human capital"—skills development measured by test scores, high school graduation and college attendance—in the years before and after every weather-related disaster declared by U.S. presidents in the last 20 years.
While many structures damaged during disasters are rebuilt, Opper found test scores, graduation rates and college-going rates all dropped for students affected by the disasters, and they didn’t rebound significantly in the next three to five years. This led to “scarring and persistent” damage to children’s lifetime earnings. Across a community, for every $1,000 a weather disaster caused in property damage per person, it caused as much or more per person in human capital damage.
“We know how to rebuild a bridge; there are technical questions of how to do it best, but at the end of the day, we know what needs to be done,” Opper said. “But I think we’re still figuring that out for human capital recovery, it’s not as straightforward.”
In part, this could be because schools serving high concentrations of disadvantaged students tend to face more weather-related disasters. Past research from the Government Accountability Office has found that school districts that have relied on emergency federal aid to recover from floods, fires, and storms are more likely to serve large shares of students of color, economically disadvantaged children, and other vulnerable groups.
Geographically, schools in the Southeast are particularly susceptible to storms, floods, and other severe weather, according to data from UndauntedK12, a nonprofit group which tracks weather-related school closures and disruptions and works with school districts on environmentally sustainable buildings.
Though it’s impossible to know for sure when weather-related catastrophes are going to strike, advance planning can ease schools’ recovery, Kuhfeld said. Among her recommendations:
“Bake in” recovery days. District leaders can estimate the risk of closures from common weather events to “bake in” recovery days when setting a school year calendar, rather than just responding to disasters after the fact. That way, students are more likely to complete a lengthened school year than attend ad hoc recovery days during weekends or breaks.
“The degree to which [recovery] can be planned in coordination with the community is important,” she said, “so that you’re not making decisions last minute and trying to take back holidays that have been planned in advance.”
- Stress-test systems. In February 2024, tens of thousands of New York City students experienced technical problems when the district tried to use remote learning during a major winter storm. Later that year, the district ran simulations in which students and families voluntarily used the remote system at designated times to iron out kinks ahead of the 2024-25 winter season.
- Upgrade infrastructure. As more schools face record-setting heat and cold, facilities can make the difference between closing school and keeping students in class. Earlier this year, for example, rare snowstorms shuttered schools across southeast Louisiana, in part due to concerns about transportation and heating at some campuses. Investing in and maintaining effective heating and cooling systems, as well as ensuring building systems and technology can operate in wider temperature conditions, can help schools stay open or reopen faster during extreme weather.
- Understand student needs. Not all weather-related closures are the same: there’s a substantive difference between missing a day or two per year for regular snowfall compared to closures due to natural disasters that involve floods, fires, or hurricanes, Kuhfeld said. In the latter case, “there’s a missed school component, but also families losing homes, schools getting damaged, and that extra trauma” that will require additional focus on students’ needs.
Kuhfeld is also starting to track the effects of seasonal weather disruptions, such as heat waves and snow days, to determine how well students bounce back from lost instruction at different times of the year.
