Heat, AC Problems Close Schools Early

Svetlana Frazeur had to pick up her daughter Lenochka from Pre‑K at Fair Haven School at noon on Wednesday — before rushing off to retrieve her son from Benjamin Jepson School, before rushing off to her 1 p.m. shift at an ALDI’s grocery store — as early dismissals due to high heat and broken air conditioning systems shuttered schools citywide.

At 10:42 a.m. Wednesday, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrόn sent out an email alert to public school families across New Haven announcing that schools would be closing early on both Wednesday and Thursday.

“Due to the increasing temperatures in some of our school buildings, we will have an early dismissal (2 hours ahead of the normally scheduled time) for all schools today and tomorrow,” she wrote. ​“After-school activities are cancelled today and tomorrow. Please reach out to your school principal and/or coach for specific updates related to athletics. Thank you for your partnership in ensuring student safety.”

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in New Haven reached into the high 80s on Wednesday; the heat index raised that temperature into the mid 90s.

In a follow up email comment sent to the Independent Wednesday, NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon said New Haven is one of a number of school districts across Connecticut that dismissed students early due to the extreme heat.

“Heat of this magnitude tests building cooling systems, which generally are not designed for extremes,” Harmon said. ​“We also experienced a number of unexpected issues with mechanicals and building management system controls, and not all of them could be fixed in time to cope with the heat we are experiencing.”

When asked why all schools were closed early and not just some, Harmon replied, ​“the HVAC systems in the schools are not designed to handle extreme temperatures. That means schools with functioning AC are also struggling to maintain appropriate temperatures indoors, particularly in the afternoon. In some cases, the result is excessive temperatures on a particular floor or in a subset of classrooms. We felt that the disruption to learning and to school operations was such that it merited early dismissal across the district.”

Teachers union President Leslie Blatteau said she has received reports from several school building stewards and staff across the city on Tuesday and Wednesday about inconsistent air conditioning in some buildings.

“It’s more about the air conditioning not working than it is about the heat,” Blatteau said.

She said the union has begun collecting staff reports about buildings with cooling problems in hopes of collaborating more closely with the school district. The goals: to improve building maintenance and communication with staff and families, and to minimize disruptions to students’ education. 

“Given the fact that we’ve got air conditioning not working in many of our buildings, this is absolutely the right call,” Blatteau said about Wednesday’s early dismissals.

She emphasized that both students and staff deserve healthy working and learning conditions in order to build relationships and have high quality instruction. ​“We need to come together to do this work,” she said. ​“We need to engage in more public collaborative problem solving. … Staff and students deserve to be in buildings that are well maintained with tools they need to do their work.” 

“Folks in central office are doing the best they can with the resources we have,” she added, but ​“routine maintenance has lacked.”

She emphasized that city public schools like New Haven’s have been deliberately underfunded by the state. She added that a state HVAC grant offered last year had strict restrictions in place making it hard for New Haven to apply. She said she hopes NHPS can apply this year.

Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller and Democratic mayoral challenger Liam Brennan, both of whom are parents of public school students, also made clear in separate interviews with the Independent that Wednesday’s early dismissal has serious consequences, and can and should be avoided with proper building maintenance.

“It’s an extreme concern that we lose learning time and school days to improperly managed facilities,” Brennan said. This is particularly serious in light of recently released state data showing continued low math and reading levels among NHPS students.

“We have to get a handle on our facilities,” Miller said. ​“It’s an equity issue that our facilities are in such poor condition.” 

In a phone interview Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Justin Elicker said that he was one of the many parents citywide who had to rearrange his schedule to pick up his daughters early because of the heat-induced dismissals. ​“I’m very confident that Dr. Negrόn makes a decision like this only as a necessity,” he said.

He said that attendance at NHPS in the first few days of the school year has been 89 percent, ​“a very good statistic” for the school year’s start.

Asked about building maintenance and AC problems districtwide, Elicker said that, typically when there’s heating or cooling problems at a school, the district is able to shuffle students around to a different school that is safe and comfortable to learn in for the day. He said that he’s open to working with district leaders and the Board of Alders to dedicate more funds towards school building maintenance, if that is something NHPS leadership wants to pursue.

Outside of Fair Haven School at around noon on Wednesday, Frazeur and her daughter Linochka walked hand in hand down Grand Avenue towards Frazeur’s car so that she could go pick up her son at Jepson before heading off to work.

Today’s early dismissal was ​“kind of inconvenient,” given how she had to get to work in less than an hour, Frazeur said. 

She said a staffer at Fair Haven School told her that the air conditioning system has been broken for a few days, and will still take a few more days to fix in its entirety. ​“They should fix that for the kids. At the end of the day, that’s a priority,” she said.

Besides the heat-induced early dismissal, Frazeur said her daughter Lenochka has very much enjoyed her first week in Pre‑K. ​“She loves the school,” she said.

Mary, the mother of a Fair Haven School student, and Lupe, Mary’s older daughter and a student at Wilbur Cross, sat in a parked car on Grand Avenue at around noon also waiting for early dismissal to wrap up.

Lupe said that some classrooms at Cross on Wednesday were comfortably cool. Some were uncomfortably hot. Overall, she said, the building’s in pretty good shape. 

Lily, a 16-year-old student at Co-Op downtown, was walking east on Grand Avenue near Ferry Street in the open sun at around 11:30. ​“I think it’s disruptive,” she said about the early dismissal. But, given that some school buildings were too hot to be in, it was probably a good idea to send students home early. ​“It was uncomfortable” she said about some of the classrooms in her downtown school building.

Fellow Co-Op students Shay, 14, and Shianna, 13, walked with two friends on Grand Avenue near East Street at around 12:15 p.m. on their way back to Fair Haven from school. They said that the AC was working at the school building itself. What they found most uncomfortable on Wednesday was walking in the open sun and such high temperatures on Grand on their way back home.

In her phone interview with the Independent Wednesday, Blatteau, the city’s teachers union president, thanked the New Haven Climate Movement for reminding the district over the past year that ​“anything is possible now given the extent of the climate crisis” and that the city must think long term while making buildings more sustainable.

On Tuesday afternoon, a day before Wednesday’s early dismissals, Mayor Justin Elicker sent out an email alert about this week’s heat wave.

That alert reads in part:

The National Weather Service has issued a Heat Advisory for our area, forecasting 90-degree temperatures and high humidity from Tuesday through Thursday.

To help residents stay safe and cool, the City of New Haven has activated our extreme heat protocols through Thursday 8 p.m.:

· City libraries and senior centers will be open as cooling centers during normal business hours.

· Splash pads at city parks will continue to be operational.

· City shelters will extend their hours and capacity, as needed.

A full list of all these locations can be found on the city’s website: newhavenct.gov

Please stay cool, stay hydrated, limit your time in direct sunlight, avoid strenuous activities, and check on your loved ones and neighbors – especially at-risk populations such as young children, the elderly, and people with underlying medical conditions. Please always call 9 – 1‑1 for any heat-related emergency.