Post by title1parent on Sept 3, 2008 5:20:37 GMT -5
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1141539,6_1_NA03_HEAT_S1.article
How hot is too hot?
D204 says it is doing all it can to keep parents cool about no a.c.
September 3, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
The temperature stood at 92 degrees.
So those Spring Brook Elementary School parents who gather outside the school to greet their children after dismissal each day stood in the shade Tuesday.
"We need air conditioning. Yes. Sign me up," said Tammy Bruner, the mother of Marissa Bruner, a Spring Brook fifth-grader.
And as hot as it was outside, Marissa said, it was hotter inside Spring Brook, one of Indian Prairie School District 204's 19 elementary schools that don't have air conditioning.
Windows were opened, and fans turned on, but all of that only served to circulate hot air, she said.
"It is so much cooler out here than in there," she said.
That's a situation that frustrates parent Julie Cercello.
"With as much as we pay in taxes here you'd think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have air conditioning," she said.
But maybe it is.
In response to the unusually hot 2007 summer - and the growing chorus of concerned parents - the district studied what it would take to retrofit these schools with air conditioning systems. It determined doing so would cost between $32 million and $45 million, and it considered conducting a survey to see if there was enough support for the idea to pass a tax increase to fund it.
But it postponed the taking of that survey, which would have cost $16,000 to $17,000, as its results wouldn't have been ready in time to place the measure on the February ballot. And board members also were wary of rushing into a referendum for these facility improvements when the district was telling voters it was likely to seek a tax increase to fund operations this spring. (Updated financial forecasts have now pushed that referendum date as far back as 2012.)
It did, however, add screens to classroom windows that lacked them, and mechanisms to make sure they're safely held open.
It also devised a heat policy that allows for early dismissal if buildings are determined to be too hot.
"We don't use a magic number of certain degrees Fahrenheit," said Martha Baumann, District 204's elementary education director. "It's a combination of estimated temperature and relative humidity."
Throughout mornings when high temperatures are expected, members of the district's grounds crew are to monitor the temperature and humidity in each of these schools, and, by noon, recommend to the superintendent whether they think classes should be dismissed at 1 p.m. rather than 3:35 p.m.
"And we ask them to physically walk the buildings and take the temperature so they get a real feel for it," Baumann said.
Meanwhile, teachers and principals are to closely monitor students. They're to encourage them to take frequent drink breaks and bring and refill bottles of their own. Teachers are encouraged to send students to air conditioned offices if the heat gets to them.
"At the same time," Baumann said, "our teachers have to maintain their instructional days."
Some days, while still hot, are more tolerable than others. Today, for instance, temperatures are expected to dip back down into the lower 70s.
"It's the issue de jour," Baumann said, "and hopefully there aren't many more of these de jours."
How hot is too hot?
D204 says it is doing all it can to keep parents cool about no a.c.
September 3, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
The temperature stood at 92 degrees.
So those Spring Brook Elementary School parents who gather outside the school to greet their children after dismissal each day stood in the shade Tuesday.
"We need air conditioning. Yes. Sign me up," said Tammy Bruner, the mother of Marissa Bruner, a Spring Brook fifth-grader.
And as hot as it was outside, Marissa said, it was hotter inside Spring Brook, one of Indian Prairie School District 204's 19 elementary schools that don't have air conditioning.
Windows were opened, and fans turned on, but all of that only served to circulate hot air, she said.
"It is so much cooler out here than in there," she said.
That's a situation that frustrates parent Julie Cercello.
"With as much as we pay in taxes here you'd think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have air conditioning," she said.
But maybe it is.
In response to the unusually hot 2007 summer - and the growing chorus of concerned parents - the district studied what it would take to retrofit these schools with air conditioning systems. It determined doing so would cost between $32 million and $45 million, and it considered conducting a survey to see if there was enough support for the idea to pass a tax increase to fund it.
But it postponed the taking of that survey, which would have cost $16,000 to $17,000, as its results wouldn't have been ready in time to place the measure on the February ballot. And board members also were wary of rushing into a referendum for these facility improvements when the district was telling voters it was likely to seek a tax increase to fund operations this spring. (Updated financial forecasts have now pushed that referendum date as far back as 2012.)
It did, however, add screens to classroom windows that lacked them, and mechanisms to make sure they're safely held open.
It also devised a heat policy that allows for early dismissal if buildings are determined to be too hot.
"We don't use a magic number of certain degrees Fahrenheit," said Martha Baumann, District 204's elementary education director. "It's a combination of estimated temperature and relative humidity."
Throughout mornings when high temperatures are expected, members of the district's grounds crew are to monitor the temperature and humidity in each of these schools, and, by noon, recommend to the superintendent whether they think classes should be dismissed at 1 p.m. rather than 3:35 p.m.
"And we ask them to physically walk the buildings and take the temperature so they get a real feel for it," Baumann said.
Meanwhile, teachers and principals are to closely monitor students. They're to encourage them to take frequent drink breaks and bring and refill bottles of their own. Teachers are encouraged to send students to air conditioned offices if the heat gets to them.
"At the same time," Baumann said, "our teachers have to maintain their instructional days."
Some days, while still hot, are more tolerable than others. Today, for instance, temperatures are expected to dip back down into the lower 70s.
"It's the issue de jour," Baumann said, "and hopefully there aren't many more of these de jours."