Students at University High School in Orange County are heading into their second week of school without reliable air conditioning and parents say the heat is taking a real toll on their kids.
With feels-like temperatures topping 100 degrees across Central Florida, parents say classrooms have become too hot to learn in. One parent, who asked not to be identified, says her daughter came home sick three days in a row.
“It happened three days in a row where she had a headache, didn’t feel good, really hot and red in the face,” the parent said.
The situation got bad enough that she had to pull her daughter out early.
“I had to dismiss her from school — she was dehydrated; she stated her whole body hurt,” the parent said. “She feels like she can’t concentrate in class.”
University High School parents received a message through the school’s portal Monday stating, “Our school is experiencing an issue with the air conditioning on campus. OCPS maintenance has been notified and is working on it. We will do our best to keep students & staff as comfortable as possible while it gets fixed. Additional water breaks will be provided.”
But for some parents, that notice didn’t come soon enough.
“It’s unacceptable. I feel like by day two, if they hadn’t fixed the AC, then we should have been alerted immediately,” one parent said.
The parent also said fans were placed in classrooms, but they weren’t providing much relief.
“She reported they do have fans, but the fans are just circulating hot air,” the parent said.
In a statement to News 6, Orange County Public Schools said the air-conditioning outage at University High School occurred late Monday afternoon.
The district added: “Once staff became aware of the issue, district maintenance personnel were immediately notified, and crews were dispatched to the campus. Given the extreme heat our area has experienced over the past week, air conditioning systems are operating under increased strain and, like any mechanical equipment, can occasionally experience unexpected failures. District maintenance staff and the HVAC vendor were on site today [Tuesday] making the necessary repairs; the campus has already begun to cool down. We appreciate the patience and understanding of our students, families, and staff as crews worked to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”
An OCPS teacher told News 6 before the start of the school year that broken AC is not an uncommon problem and that it directly affects students’ ability to learn.
“If my air conditioning’s not working, my students aren’t learning, because we’re all hot, and we’re tired, and we’re cranky, and we’re angry and a fan is not doing it,” the teacher said.
In the meantime, the parent says her daughter is now packing extra water every day to get through the school day.
“Now I’m sending her to school with three [water bottles], and I’m freezing them so it will last her the entire day,” she said.
In an updated statement to News 6, OCPS says the issue was resolved by mid-morning Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the failure occurred.
The district added: “OCPS maintains classroom temperatures within a target range of 74 to 77 degrees. During the recent period of extreme heat, increased demand on cooling systems occasionally resulted in temperatures reaching approximately 78 degrees near the end of the school day. However, the building consistently cooled back to normal operating temperatures before students returned the following day. During the 24-hour period of the outage, temperatures on campus were never reported to exceed 80 degrees.”
News 6 also checked in with the concerned parent, who also confirmed the AC is working as of Wednesday morning.