Wildfire smoke AQI forecasts lack the spatial and temporal resolution school districts need to make closure decisions before parents drop off children

School superintendents in fire-prone western states must decide by 5-6 AM whether to close schools, but EPA AirNow PM2.5 forecasts are issued at county-wide resolution and updated only every few hours. Smoke plumes from active wildfires can shift dramatically within 30 minutes due to wind changes, meaning a forecast of 'moderate' AQI at 5 AM can become 'hazardous' by 8 AM when children are walking to school. So what? Superintendents making decisions on stale, coarse-grained data either close schools unnecessarily (costing parents missed work days and disrupting learning) or keep schools open during dangerous air quality (exposing children to PM2.5 levels that cause asthma attacks and long-term respiratory damage). So what? Schools without HVAC systems capable of filtering smoke -- common in older buildings -- become indoor exposure chambers when AQI spikes, and children spend 6-7 hours breathing air that exceeds workplace safety limits. So what? Repeated smoke exposure days compound over a school year; research shows children in wildfire-affected areas of California lost measurable lung function capacity over multi-year exposure periods. So what? Low-income school districts in rural fire-prone areas are least likely to have HVAC filtration, portable air purifiers, or the budget to close and provide remote learning alternatives. So what? Parents in these communities -- often agricultural workers -- cannot stay home from work, so children attend school regardless of closures, or are left unsupervised. The problem persists because EPA's monitor network was designed for regional air quality compliance, not hyperlocal smoke tracking; low-cost sensor networks (PurpleAir) lack the calibration and institutional trust for official decision-making; and there is no federal standard defining what AQI threshold requires school closure, leaving each of the 13,000+ districts to set their own policy.