POLK COUNTY, Fla. — On the second day of school in Polk County, more schools in the county are reporting that they don't have working air-conditioning units.
“Every year, we’ve dealt with AC issues, but they’ve been isolated, they’ve been in pockets. They haven’t been to the measure that we’ve seen with 30 plus schools having widespread AC problems,” said Stephanie Yocum, president of Polk Education Association.
With scorching temperatures and school back in session, Yocum believes fixing those AC units is urgent.
“We have about four or five AC techs still with the district, but with a district that size, it’s not enough. We have about nine vacancies,” Yocum said.
According to Yocum, the school district was notified months ago about AC issues but did not act. That is why the Polk Education Association filed a class action grievance against Polk County Public Schools last week.
The formal complaint said the district is in violation of teacher contracts to provide a comfortable and healthy environment.
“Once the media picked this up on Thursday, they had to respond, and they hadn’t been at that point. It had been schools didn’t know the status of these work orders. Nobody was getting hardly any information,” Yocum said.
Following the first day of school, Yocum said 15 additional schools filed work orders for AC problems, bringing the total to 30 Polk County schools without working AC.
“Several schools where their cafeteria is out as well. Try having 100 to 500 kids in some of these cafeterias at once with no AC,” Yocum said.
When the AC went out in Octavio Hernandez's algebra classroom last year, he said it was not a conducive learning environment.
“Having teachers throughout the entire county working in an environment of 100-degree weather is ridiculous. It's something that’s unfathomable to actually understand that children have to work in this type of heat,” Hernandez said. “On top of that, the county doesn’t let us control the thermostat in some places.”
Polk County Public School leaders tell ABC Action News that HVAC crews worked overtime to repair AC issues during the weekend.
Polk isn’t the only Tampa Bay school district facing AC issues. In Pasco County, Land O’ Lakes High School students have been moved to other classrooms because of broken AC units.
The teacher’s union is urging parents to voice their concerns to the school board to get a system in place where something like this does not happen in the future.
