The district says the issue has been resolved, except at one school, but students today said the classrooms at Highlands High School were better but still cold.
Cold temperatures in the classroom are once again an issue at some SAISD schools. Last year during the deep freeze, the district acknowledged issues with boilers at several school.
Then just this past Monday, the district sent out a message to families stating all boilers had been serviced, but thermostats at one school showed differently.
The district says when students returned from winter break on Tuesday, six schools including Highlands High School experienced HVAC issues.
“I’m just going to be blunt. They’re lies. I think they just say what they say to get parents to shut up, and not make comments,” said Ashley O’Brien, Parent.
O’Brien expressed frustration after her two children, who attend Highlands High School, sent her photos of classroom temperatures in the lower 50s.
“I was mad. I didn’t understand, confusion because I don’t understand why the issue wasn’t fixed this this school year, especially with the event that took place last year,” said O’Brien.
In January of 2024, 70% of SAISD’s nearly 90 schools experienced HVAC system failures. In a letter sent out on Monday, the district said personnel had been working since the summer to ensure they were ready for the cold weather.
O’Brien says she sent her children to school on Tuesday with hope there would not be a repeat of last year, but when her children got home, she could tell they had not been kept warm in the classrooms.
“I could see his nose was red and he had a runny nose and he said it was freezing all day and his bones were hurting. He was just so uncomfortable,” said O’Brien.
We went to the school and spoke with a student who said she called her mom to come get her because classrooms are better today than they were yesterday, but still cold.
“It’s hard to focus and I know me personally when it’s cold I get tired,” said a student.
Not wanting her children to sit in a cold classroom, O’Brien says she kept her children home today. She says she just wants the issue fixed for everyone involved.
“It seems like every year they just put a Band-Aid on it, but, you know, the students are should be their priority,” said O’Brien.
Here is SAISD’s Full Statement on the issues:
All schools were prepared for the cold weather, following the system checks we initiated this past year and over the weekend for this particular weather event. Despite this, issues can still arise as a school day starts, and our schools have mitigation plans to address these issues. This happened at Highlands High School. The school was fully prepared. At 7 a.m., an issue with the boiler occurred. The issue was resolved by late afternoon and the temperatures were within the setpoints of 69-72 degrees for instructional areas. Today, Highlands continues to meet these setpoints.
We continue to monitor campuses at all times. Like other large school districts, and considering the age and condition of our buildings and the number of systems we operate, it is customary for us to provide maintenance and/or repairs at multiple sites throughout the district on a daily basis.
Yesterday, we addressed a total of 29 high-priority issues throughout the day, which is approximately twice the number as usual. In most cases, we returned the functionality within one hour. However, others were more complicated and took longer to bring back online – such as the case at Highlands High School. In the case of Highlands, as new parts of the boiler were repaired, older up-chain components also began to fail.
By 6 p.m. yesterday, we were monitoring six schools where mitigation protocols were being implemented, and we dispatched technicians and contractors to these sites. This included Highlands, Fox Tech and Burbank high schools, and Graebner, Carvajal, and Washington elementary schools. By the start of school this morning, the issues had been returned to functionality or mitigation strategies had been put in place.
It is important to note that all 29 high-priority issues were not down at the same time.
As of now, we have one school, Carvajal, that has reported a system that has failed, and technicians are currently onsite making repairs. This system was brought back online this morning, and we are continuing to investigate secondary issues with the system on this campus.
We have full-time HVAC technicians dedicated to maintaining and repairing equipment. Given the number of systems we operate, we maintain and repair systems daily. Our teams continue to maintain focus on our facilities, working with our technical teams, and advising our principals during these extreme temperatures.