TULSA, Okla. — Schools are taking extra steps to protect children during the brutal stretch of summer weather.
At lunchtime, silence at a school playground is not normal.
"My daughter is very upset that she hasn't been able to go outside for the last couple of days," Tulsa's Eliot Elementary School parent Mike Cation said. "That's her favorite part, is recess."
Bixby Schools Superintendent Rob Miller told 2 News preventative measures like that are now a necessity when the heat index is so high during so much of the school day.
"We really have to be intentional," Supt. Miller said. "Our principals know and they track that heat index, so if it gets above 100 we're not taking kids outside. So we don't have recess or outdoor activities during those particular days."
The decisions are backed up by medicine.
"The people that are very young as well as the very old are most at-risk for heat-related illness," Ascension Medicine Physician Dr. Jason Lepak said.
EMSA Tulsa reports that since July 23 their Tulsa metro area units have responded to six calls for heat-related illness in kids under the age of 14.
Elementary and intermediate schools across Green Country are invoking extreme weather policies to hold recess either early in the morning or completely indoors.
In many cases they're asking parents to send their kids to school with a reusable bottle.
"Having 100-degree days (is) not unprecedented, certainly. But having a string of five or six in a row does get to be pretty oppressive and it causes it to kind of look and make sure that we're doing everything we can to keep kids safe," Miller said.
Cation said he's told by his daughter's school specifically when his child can get to play outside.
"When it's this hot they have a red flag system basically saying, 'We're not going outside right now.' So it's just one of those things," Cation said. "It's basic health needs for the kids making sure they're not getting overheated and making sure on top of it that they're also getting hydrated because even in air-conditioned classrooms it's still really, really hot."
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