HOUSTON HEIGHTS – Harvard Elementary School is Houston’s oldest school and celebrated its 125th birthday last September, but despite that proud distinction, parents tell KPRC 2 the school’s 126th year is off to a hot and miserable start.
For nearly two weeks now, Heights-area parents have sent their children to Harvard, where they said air conditioning issues are disrupting learning for their students.
The issues are causing extreme heat in classrooms, and the parents’ tensions are rising as days pass without a straightforward resolution.
“There’s been kids that have vomited in his classroom from the heat,” the father of a kindergartener, who asked to remain anonymous, told KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry.
An image shared with KPRC 2 shows a thermometer in a classroom at Harvard, where the temperature reached a sweltering 94 degrees as classes dismissed for the day.
In one case, parents said students’ pages of work have become damp because of the humidity. In another case, snacks that parents are asked to send, in this case oranges, went bad before they were able to eat them and were “molding” by the afternoon.
The parent of a fourth grader told KPRC 2 that her classroom has a constant flow of students being brought in and out to cool off because the room has a window air conditioning unit.
“They’re also bringing in other kids from other classrooms to her classroom during the day, which is very distracting,” the parent said, adding that it’s happening during a mandated testing period.
In a message sent out to Harvard families on Aug. 18, the school’s principal explained that a “compressor blew,” so the school had to use a temporary one. The principal told families in an Aug. 16 note that she had made “ongoing requests the past two years to address our HVAC issues.”
This isn’t the first time that Harvard’s students and faculty have had to work around faulty HVAC systems.
Back in January, families were told to send their kids to school bundled up in big jackets when the school didn’t have properly functioning central heat amid freezing temperatures in the Houston area.
KPRC 2 reported at the time the district had to bring in portable heaters.
Eight months later, the school is dealing with uncomfortable conditions on the other side of the thermometer.
Parents are saying these issues reflect a bigger problem: a lack of transparency from the Houston ISD.
“It’s very frustrating. You know, being a parent and putting, you know, your trust in a school, that you want to send your kids to,” the parent of the kindergartener said.
The parents said they’ve been told to address the issues at a school board meeting, the PTA hasn’t been able to help, and they’ve been told they can’t pitch in to get a window unit for their child’s’ classroom.
“Imagine trying to wait for a bond to be not only approved, issued and then the funds allocated and then done. It’s ridiculous,” the fourth grade parent said.
Thursday night, HISD told KPRC 2 that some of the systems are simply old and need attention, but when issues arise, campus leaders try to move students to cooler rooms to make the environment more comfortable.
It is currently unclear when these issues will be resolved at Harvard.