POLK COUNTY, Fla. — On Friday, there will be a class action grievance meeting between the Polk Education Association and the Polk County School District.
The Polk Education Association claims it keeps receiving reports of air conditioning issues at schools across the district.
“Every year there’s pockets here and there where we have to relocate rooms but never to this magnitude. We’re up to about 60 schools now that have reported AC issues that haven’t been fixed yet,” said Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk Education Association.
ABC Action News found out that there are not entire schools without air conditioning, but rather varying issues in individual classrooms within schools.
“Each school is a little bit different. It might be the cafeteria and a handful of classrooms. It might be an entire wing of a building. It could be the hallways, and so it really depends on the school site,” said Yocum.
That’s why the Education Association filed a grievance with the school district, and at today’s meeting, they’re hoping to put continued pressure on the district to fix AC units and create procedures, including better preventative maintenance efforts.
“We have to look at long-term plans and policy and procedure changes because... we cannot continue to be operating in a reactive sense. We have to be proactive. We’re in central Florida. It’s just too hot,” said Yocum.
ABC Action News reached out to the Polk County School District, but they did not respond to our request for an interview.
However, they did release a statement to give an update on what’s been going on and how they’re working to fix this.
Officials said the maintenance department has received 755 work orders for AC problems since Aug. 1. More than 600 work orders have been closed out now.
Maintenance crews have been on site working to make repairs, and the district has also authorized overtime for night and weekend work to get it done as quickly as possible.
They’re prioritizing repairs in rooms without AC that are used by students and bringing in portable AC units where possible.
As a temporary measure, schools have the flexibility to relocate students that are in rooms without working AC.
As to why this is happening, the statement cited the recent extreme heat as creating a surge in problems.
The district said there have also been systemic issues, like the difficulty of maintaining aging school buildings when state funding has not been adequate.
The grievance meeting starts at 1 p.m.
If no resolution is found on Friday, the issue will go to the school board.
