Some parents, students and teachers in the San Diego Unified School District are seething over having no air conditioning in some schools. The district said it is trying to get portable air conditioning units to schools as soon as possible.
“Last class I was lightheaded,” said San Diego High School junior Jack Rivaldi. “It’s hard to concentrate.”
Some classrooms at San Diego High have air conditioning that works, some classrooms have older units that are broken and some classrooms at the school never had air conditioning.
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“San Diego High is the only campus not fully air conditioned,” said the district’s Facility and Communications Supervisor Samer Naji. But that does not mean the air conditioning units are working at schools that do have air conditioning.
Under a 2015 initiative, the district rushed to put in air conditioning in all the classrooms in the district that did not have it, totaling some 7,000 classrooms, Naji said. San Diego High was one of the schools that did not get it.
The campus sits on city-owned property and until a new long-term lease could be signed with the city, the district did not want to spend bond money, Naji said. The lease has recently been signed and construction is underway to get the classrooms that never had AC new air conditioning.
Parent Jean Rivaldi wanted to know what students and teachers were supposed to do in the meantime.
“He’ll be graduated by the time this is all settled,” referring to her son. Rivaldi said the district should have had a plan for the hot weather and is responsible for maintaining the older air conditioning units it has.
Naji said besides San Diego High, there is a potential other school with older air conditioning units may be having problems, but he could not say how many, or which schools.
“When we have older systems, when it gets this hot, we do have issues from time to time,” Naji added.
Raxzel Beronio said her daughter is a fourth grader at Walker Elementary School in Mira Mesa where she said the air conditioning unit in one of the buildings was broken.
“They need to do something. They’re kids,” Beronio said.
Naji said the district has a dedicated team of HVAC technicians working around the clock to keep the system running during the heat wave, with the schools with the greatest need getting the attention first. He also said if a part is needed to fix the air conditioning system, it may take time because of the slow supply chain.
"When we want things to happen, they happen,” said Beronio.
“It isn’t one week at the beginning of the school… Now we’re in climate change. It can be hot anytime of the year,” Rivaldi said.
