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While the Chicago area has been blessed by an unusually mild August, a dozen Chicago-area schools are struggling to stay cool as the CPS has removed air conditioning units from classrooms. The schools affected are: Earle, Banneker, Brownell, Dixon, Fiske, Hinton, Reavis, Revere, Yale, Woods, Whistler and Wentworth. Over 400 air conditioning units have been removed since the start of the summer, leaving teachers and students to depend on fans to keep temps down. CPS Chief Officer of School Coordination Jackie Anderson blames lack of funding, saying the lease to keep the units was $1 million. "For that lease to be extended it would cost us about a quarter of million and we don't have the funding." Officials promise that a new cheaper, permanent system will be in place by next school year. No word yet on whether or not officials plan to cut costs further by replacing heating units with bonfires this winter.
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The stench of City Hall. No, it is not corrupt politicians or unwashed Aldermen.
Piss Poor Plumbin
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Naaah....when winter comes they don't need bonfires...just warm up with the root beer float recipe in the post below.
I went to middle school in a 100+ year old building with no air conditioning. About 4 or 5 times a year, we'd go home early because the heat and humidity would be suffocating. As long as the CPS policy is the same, I don't have a problem with it, considering it's not a long term solution.
i'm curious where those schools are located in the city. just for shits and giggles.
@slaphappy:
except there is no policy like that in place in CPS. it takes something like a nuclear winter to make CPS send kids home early. also, most (if not all, i'm only familiar with some of them) of the schools listed are track E schools, meaning they're in school for all of august, and while 80 degrees may be mild for august, it's not mild when you're on the 3rd floor of a building and your classroom is full of 25 writhing children. wanna know how to get kids to NOT pay attention and start acting like pains-in-the-butt? make them hot and sweaty.
Aside from the one year that I had an exceedingly fat teacher who brought in his own window air conditioner from home I spent K-12 in classrooms with the air quality of the inside of a gym sock. I feel for these kids.
I don’t think it’d be too presumptuous for me to assume that the school offices and administrative buildings are fully air conditioned.
Slaphappy, did your classrooms have thermometers in them? I remember staring at the one in my fifth grade English room, praying it’d inch up to 95 (the temp. we’d get sent home at) so I could go home and catch Goof Troop.
Charles W. Earle School
6121 South Hermitage Avenue
Benjamin Banneker School
6656 South Normal Boulevard
Charles S. Brownell School
6741 South Michigan Avenue
Arthur Dixon School
8306 South St. Lawrence Avenue
John Fiske School
6145 South Ingleside Avenue
William Augustus Hinton Elementary School
644 West 71st Street
William Claude Reavis School
834 East 50TH Street
Paul Revere Accelerated School
1010 East 72ND Street
Granville T. Woods Math/Science Community Academy (Formerly Gershwin)
6206 South Racine Avenue
John Whistler Elementary School
11533 South Ada Street
Elihu Yale School
7025 South Princeton Avenue
Daniel S. Wentworth School
6950 South Sangamon Street
No, NO, NO.
You have 30 (ha, if you're lucky) kids in a room, and it's over 80 degrees you have AIR-CONDITIONING.
I know the golden oldies are going to roll in and say they sweated it out back when Ike was in the White House and women wore poodle skirts, but just because you suffered doesn't mean anyone else should.
Human beings give off heat. Even with open windows (an invitation to distraction as any teacher can tell you) and fans it can still be a stinky room full of kids. AIR-CONDITIONING IS BASIC.
just because you suffered doesn't mean anyone else should.
lol. I graduated from high school in the 90s, and we didn't have air conditioning. Based on personal experience, I think they'll be able to make it. Despite this, I highly doubt that this will be used as a reason for why they're not showing up at school.
smussy and evelyn - thanks for the follow up info on the schools. gosh, i am sure it is pure coincidence that all of the schools are on the south and southeast side.
my grade school and high school didn't have air conditioning, and it sucked. but we didn't start until the end of august.
if the city is going to require these kids to attend school throughout august, they should have air conditioning. and frankly, the teachers should have air conditioning too. a room full of 30 some kids gets hot pretty fast. perhaps the city could save money in a different way that doesn't make public school students more miserable.
I didn't know there were schools that DID have air conditioning. My mother-in-law teaches in the city (on the north side, but in a low-income community)and they have no AC and for awhile, the windows were sealed. Not sure if that is still true, but I know for sure they don't have AC.
In addition to the fact that it's nearly impossible for an uncomfortable kid to pay attention, there's also the issue that a huge number of kids in low-income communities have asthma, which is worsened in those circumstances.
well ... i didn't have AC in WI that i can remember, either ... but we didn't start until the week after labor day.
not to mention ... are they taking AC away from 10 schools on the north side? or do those schools not have to lease (WTF?) their air conditioners?
Uh, I graduated from high school in 2001, and we sure as shit didn't have air conditioning.
Well, that's a lie, the computer lab, main office, and faculty lounge (of course) had air conditioning.
$1 million / 400 = $2500
Even for industrial air conditioners, they could buy them for just a few times the price of their lease instead of getting gouged. They're doing the right thing, but it was pretty shitty planning to have them pulled out before the summer is over.
WTF! 400 window ac units cost $1,000,000 to lease? That is $2500 per AC unit. For that price they could have purchased 4 or 5 classroom sized window units. No wonder the district has no money. They wasted it all on stupid lease contracts with (and I'm speculating here) someones brother-in-law. Wonder how much of the cool million was a kickback to CPS employee?
Here is a home depot price on a LG window AC unit.
It costs $630 and can cool a room that is 36x40, about the size of a classroom. You could probably get a better price if you bought 400 of them.
Any surprise where those schools are located? Of course not.
Sorry, I don't accept the 'well I didn't have AC.' line. These schools HAD air-conditioning and it was TAKEN AWAY because the city paid several times the going rate to lease them.
These kids are getting a lesson just how fucked the Chicago system is.
But hey, aren't all these kids going to New Trier anyway?
Slaphappy, did your classrooms have thermometers in them?
Not that I can recall. All I know is that the days we left early were the days it went into the 90s.
These schools HAD air-conditioning and it was TAKEN AWAY because the city paid several times the going rate to lease them.
Fair enough.
I taught at a northside high school for five years. Third floor, 28 kids, no AC. The story we were told was that it would cost about $5,000 per room to wire it for AC, plus the cost of the AC.
The computer labs had AC, the main office had AC, and of course all the administrators had AC, none of the faculty offices did, nor did the teachers' lounge.
The female teachers were more comfortable, because we could wear skirts and dresses, but the male teachers were told that they could not wear shorts because it was unprofessional. It was brutal.
Well, those kids are nothing but fodder for the Prison Industrial Complex any way, so why would you want them comfortable? Actually its best to keep them uncomfortable to facilitate violence over say, learning.
Or as Jonathan Swift said in that little diddy he called "A Modest Proposal"
....."I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation."
Looks like America has come up with its own "Modest Proposal" for inner city youth