Urge Atlanta students to get As, but protect them from breathing F-rated air
When the new school year started, parents spent all their time doing everything they could to prepare their kids to have the best year yet. Picking out backpacks, going through those long lists of school supplies and getting the kids back into their daily routines. And for some, kids reached new milestones like starting kindergarten, going to middle school or maybe even entering their senior year.
We worry about all of the things like: Are they going to make friends? Are they going to be able to focus? Will they fit in? All of those worries are valid. But there’s another question Atlanta parents may not realize we need to ask: Did we send our children back into environments where the air itself can make it harder for them to learn?
The American Lung Association’s 2026 State of the Air report found that more than 944,000 children in Georgia are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution.
Greater Atlanta received an F for ozone pollution and an F for year-round particle pollution. We’re worried about our kids receiving Fs in their school classes, but I don’t think any of us knew we needed to worry about our city receiving an F for ozone pollution.
Air pollution can be especially harmful for children with asthma
And while you may be thinking, “Well, kids are inside school for 8-plus hours a day. Who cares what the outdoor air quality looks like?”, our kids don’t spend their entire school day sealed inside a classroom. Many children, especially within Atlanta Public Schools, take the bus to and from school. They spend time outside before and after school. For many kids, the hour they look forward to most is recess, but after-school activities are not to be forgotten about either.
In fact, APS recommends that schools consider the Air Quality Index when determining whether outdoor activity is appropriate for children with asthma and environmental allergies. On certain days, something as simple as going outside to play may become a health decision. But air quality isn’t solely a matter of whether kids get the opportunity to go outside and play.
In Georgia, 8.7% of children ages 0 to 17 have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives. For children with asthma, exposure to air pollution can trigger or worsen symptoms and contribute to asthma attacks. And when a child experiences a severe asthma attack, the consequences can extend far beyond that child’s lungs.
A trip to the emergency room can mean an unexpected medical bill. It can also mean a parent or caretaker missing a day of work. For parents without paid time off (or those who have already exhausted it), that can mean losing income. For a family already struggling to make ends meet, suddenly there are difficult decisions to make like do I pay the water bill? Buy groceries? Or pay for the prescriptions my child needs?
Poor air quality can set off a domino effect that follows a family from the emergency room to their paycheck and eventually back into the classroom. Children with uncontrolled asthma are more likely to miss school and experience poorer academic performance. When children repeatedly miss school because they’re sick, they lose valuable classroom time, fall behind their peers and can struggle to catch back up. And that brings us to something we don’t talk about enough when we talk about educational equity in Atlanta: the environment children live and learn in.
Sickness leads to missed days in school, putting these children at a disadvantage
The reality is that the burden of poor air quality is not shared equally. Too often, low-income communities and communities of color already facing other environmental and economic burdens are also the communities where children are more vulnerable to pollution and its consequences.
So, when one child is more likely to be exposed to pollution, more likely to have their asthma triggered, more likely to miss class because they’re sick, and more likely to come from a household where an unexpected medical emergency creates financial hardship, we cannot pretend that child is starting the school year on equal footing. This is not only an environmental justice issue. It is an educational disparity that many of our kids face.
If we’re serious about educational equity in Atlanta, clean air has to become part of that conversation. That means prioritizing the schools and neighborhoods carrying the greatest environmental burdens. It means continuing to invest in cleaner school transportation and reducing unnecessary idling around schools. It means making air-quality information easily accessible to parents, teachers and school staff. And it means ensuring our school buildings themselves are healthy environments, with ventilation and filtration systems capable of protecting students when outdoor air quality is poor.
Parents will continue doing their part. We bought the backpacks. We checked off the school supply lists. We got our kids back into their routines, asked them how their first day went and reminded them to finish their homework. But preparing Atlanta’s children for a successful school year can’t only be the responsibility of parents.
Our city and our school systems have a responsibility, too, to make sure the environments we’re sending our children into aren’t making them sick. Every child deserves the opportunity to earn an A. They shouldn’t have to breathe F-rated air while trying to do it.
Diamond Spratling is an Atlanta-based, award-winning Climate DisruptHER, children’s book author, and global public speaker.
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