The oppressive heat is making conditions difficult inside Albuquerque classrooms for both students and teachers, and parents are complaining.
“This week it’s ridiculous,” Valerie Herrera de Ramirez, the mother of two students at Chaparral Elementary School, told KOB4 News. “It is 90 degrees in the classroom. It is extremely hot. My boys say, ‘Mom, we’re exhausted, we’re tired.'”
Albuquerque Public Schools anticipated having problems with air-conditioning systems and tried to make repairs before the school year began. But staff shortages, parts delays and the hot, humid weather impacting cooling systems have slowed progress.
John Dufay, the executive director of operations at APS, receives 20 to 30 calls for HVAC service each day. To meet the demand, crews are working overtime to replace motors and pumps or install entirely new air-conditioning units. Fans help, too.
“We just got delivered to our warehouse another 500 fans that we’re putting in classrooms that have a lot of issues that may not be cooling as much,” Dufay told KOB4 News.
Crews are working 12-hour days, seven days a week, Dufay said, and some workers are getting “burned out.”
Dufay asked teachers, students and parents to be patient and also recommended that parents send their children to school with water bottles to help them stay hydrated. He encouraged those experiencing air-conditioning problems to continue to contact the school district, and crews will attempt to make repairs within 48 hours of each report.
He also said issues with the swamp cooler at Chaparral Elementary have been resolved, adding that the district is slowly installing refrigerated air units in place of swamp coolers across the district.
