To prepare for the new school year, teachers have different priorities to juggle. Additionally, some teachers have been dealing with air-conditioning issues and have not had AC in their classrooms since students returned to campus on Aug. 20. Nine days of no AC, has disrupted teaching and learning in the affected parts of the building.

The temporary solution for some classrooms have been portable spot coolers. According to teachers like English teacher Jennifer Wood, these coolers don’t seem to be making much of an impact, especially during the summer heat. Wood shared that she’s seen the temperature in her room reach 84 degrees. To make matters worse, the coolers have been extremely noisy.

“At times, I’m just panicking because my room is so hot, and that machine is so loud,” she said. “It compounds my experience because it’s hot, but then I’m screaming. I have never started the school year with absolutely no AC for over an entire week.”

Impacting multiple parts of campus; currently English classrooms and Portable 11 have absolutely no AC, while four science classrooms are experiencing fluctuating temperatures. Given the circumstances, Principal Andy Baxa is working toward a solution, but at the moment, the school is only able to provide portable spot coolers. 

“We are doing everything we can to get it fixed as quickly as possible,” he said. “We understand that spot coolers are not the same as the actual AC unit in there. It’s harder for those spot coolers to work on a normal day, but then you throw temperatures of 108, 109, 110. That makes it hard for the normal AC systems to work, much less a temporary spot cooler to perform at the level we need it to perform.”

Occuring for multiple days, Baxa has encouraged some teachers to move their classes into different, cooler, parts of the school. While some have taken him up on the offer, others like Wood treat that option as a last resort.

“My classroom is really about safety, it’s about comfort, it’s about making students feel loved,” she said. “To have to leave my classroom disrupts everything that I’ve tried to prepare to make myself a good teacher.”

Across the hall from Wood, English teacher Meredith Miller faced the same dilemma. 

“I had to move in the middle of one of my classes because it got way too hot, which is just rough for everyone—for the students, for me, it’s hard,” Miller said. “I would much rather stay in my room than move somewhere. I put a lot of time, money and energy into my room, and I feel more comfortable here.”

But for both teachers it’s not just about their comfort in their own space. They each have concerns about the toll this is taking on students. 

“I feel like students will learn better whenever I’m teaching in my classroom, so it’s really hard to leave,” Miller said. “It’s hard because one of the solutions they have given me is they can put another one of these portable AC’s in my room, but one of my biggest problems is the noise, and it will just be louder.”

Whether sweltering in the heat, battling the noise, or moving locations, Wood shared that it’s a negative learning and working environment for everyone.

“All of it affects students’ learning,” Wood said. “Kids are hot. If sound bothers you, if me yelling bothers you, if all these things bother you, it’s very overstimulating. [Meanwhile] everyone’s working harder. The custodians have to dump out the water from the cooling machine every hour!”

Senior Trinity Ritcherson, who is in Wood’s AP English Literature and Composition class fourth period, shared that the heat has caused an unnecessary challenge in classes that are already challenging enough.

“The AC problem in Ms. Wood’s class is pretty irritating because it’s the end of the day and the last thing you want to do is be uncomfortable, hot and sweaty in a class that you’re really supposed to focus on,” she said. “It feels like everybody is agitated because of the heat, which makes the learning environment not as successful.”

Every day since the first day of school Ritcherson has had a class with no AC. Along with Wood’s fourth period English class, she takes eighth-period government with Miller, where one period her class had to relocate due to the hot learning environment. 

“It’s just another class that you have to focus on and it’s hard to do so when it’s just such an annoying environment to be in, ” she said. “It affects the teachers because you can tell that since the students aren’t in the best mindset because of the heat; neither are the teachers.”

Principal Baxa acknowledged these challenges, supporting the teachers who were hoping to stay in their classrooms, while also keeping safety first.

“It’s a balancing act between meeting what the teacher demands versus student safety,” he said. “One day I walked in there, and I saw everybody very hot and sweaty, and I said, ‘Look, if we’re just as hot tomorrow, we gotta move.’”

As the days drag on, health and safety have become issues for teachers and students. 

“It’s just been really hard,” Miller said. “It’s kind of taken a toll on my health, actually. At the end of the day last week, I was feeling really not well, probably because I hadn’t been drinking enough water because it was so hot in my room. Now I’m losing my voice.”

Wood has been experiencing similar effects and noticed the negative impact that it had on her and the teachers around her. 

“I’m finding myself in the afternoons not as sharp, worried more,” she said. “I’m taking roll and people can’t hear me over the cooling machine. My ears are buzzing at the end of the day. I know a couple of my colleagues have coughs from overstraining their voices.”

The issue surrounding the west end of the English hall’s AC system stems from a broken part. In order to regain sustainable classroom temperatures, this part will have to be replaced. The search for the replacement part is underway but could take up to weeks or months. Until then, Baxa is in close communication with AISD’s facilities team.

“Right now, I trust that our facilities group is doing everything they can to fix it as quickly as possible,” he said. “I don’t believe that anybody is sitting around going ‘Phft, we’ll get to it when we get to it.’ I understand that there are a hundred and something facilities in this district and a limited number of resources from AISD to service those facilities.”

Although a solution is in the works, the days have become exhausting for teachers, like Wood, who don’t see an end in sight.

“I have some questions and that doesn’t mean that I don’t have positive intent. It means I am reasonable and realistic,” she said. “I just want to know did [the part] get ordered? For sure? Who ordered it? What’s the part? That’s how my brain works. I’m gonna ask those questions when I am losing my voice, my eyes are watering, I’m losing focus and I’m making errors.”

For other teachers, frequent communication would help lessen the strain of the situation. 

“I would just love updates,” Miller said. “Even if it’s just ‘I don’t have an update for you,’ to follow up and acknowledge that they are still pursuing it and I haven’t been forgotten.”

While Baxa understands the questions and concerns, he is taking it one step at a time, trusting the process and hoping for a timely solution. 

“We’re working through the systems and the processes to try to get it fixed and to address this as quickly as possible,” he said. “Is it moving as quickly as we want? No. I don’t think anything ever works as quickly as we want. We want it back on tomorrow. So we’ll try to be patient, and we’ll have to work with our teachers to make sure we meet their needs and the students’ needs.”