In the first month of the new school year, lingering issues with air conditioning systems have plagued several campuses across Houston ISD, leading one school to even call for a community meeting with leadership at the district.
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At the center of the controversy is HISD superintendent Mike Miles, who has led sweeping changes across the district during his time in the state-appointed position.
This morning, KPRC 2′s Brittany Jeffers visited some of the schools having issues with HVAC systems and chatted with some of the officials associated with the technology.
After seeing the situation firsthand, she sat down with Miles to discuss some of the HVAC issues across the district.
Jeffers: Well, first of all, thank you again for letting us have the perspective to get to see what your team is doing when they’re fielding those calls, when they go out into the community. For those who’ve been critical of the response on those HVAC systems, what would you tell those parents, in response to how the team is performing?
Miles: Yeah, I’m glad you came to see behind the scenes what’s actually happening, because in response, I would say that there’s a lot happening every day. We have some old, failing systems, and so the teams have been working overtime. You see, they get in early, they look at the alarms, and they try their best to get all the buildings cool by the time the kids get there. But we’ll have several chillers trip, or we’ll have a power outage somewhere. And so, then it’s a scramble to either get a generator there, get CenterPoint on it, or get our own guys to put the chillers back on and the air conditioning units back on. I mean, it’s just it’s a big system, right? 274 schools and another 30 buildings. So, to get all of them cool by the time, you know, kids start. Now they’re run overnight, right, that they continue to run. But they’ll trip, the chillers will switch off or there’ll be some sort of power surge, or a breaker goes out. And so, it’s a race every day to try to get all the air conditioning units working, and then we keep it that way throughout the day. So, you know, the job is to make sure the kids and the teachers have a comfortable environment in which to study and to work. That’s the key, and it’s no small feat when the weather is 100 degrees. You came today, the weather’s, cooler than it has been, but on those days where it’s 90 some degrees over 100 degrees, I mean, all the buildings are warm, and we and the air conditioning units are working overtime, of course. And so, we are just we’re racing to get all of them up and keep them up.
Jeffers: When you referenced some of those older schools, we saw, for instance, Holland this morning, which is one that the technicians referenced is a reoccurring alert that they see. What long term needs to be done?
Miles: Yes. So long term, we need in many buildings, an overhaul of the HVAC or the air conditioning units. So, we need new rooftop units in most of those places or, new chillers and others, so that we won’t have as many go down, especially the rooftop units. We need more temporary coolers. Since I’ve been here for a little over a year, we’ve, bought 450 temporary coolers. Even that’s not enough when you have a system this big. And so, we’re going to be doing more of that. So, right now we are playing catch-up because the systems are so old. And I can’t advocate for the bond, but I can tell you that the bond package that we propose has a lot of air conditioning and cooling systems in it.
Jeffers: For those who’ve been critical of this saying, it’s one thing to get it back up and running, but another is to question, do you know what’s being done internally and externally to make sure that those HVAC systems are up and running?
Miles: Oh, yeah. So, the maintenance team, they’re on it all day, and even well into the night. You met Alishia Jolivette [Webber], who’s the head of facilities and maintenance, and she and her team are working late in the night just to make sure things are running again, running for the next day. I’ve had calls as late as 12:15 [a.m.] or text messages from Alishia that night, and then as early as 4:30 the next morning, same night, same morning. And that’s a regular occurrence that teams are working, and they have shifts, of course, because they’re getting there early, because if something trips overnight—right—the power goes out or stops working or what we call alarms, then it’ll take probably about two hours to get the building cool. So, we have to get there early. The teams get there early to make sure that the that the system is working, or that whatever is alarmed is fixed, so that by the time the kids get there, it’ll be cool enough.
Jeffers: Do you think that going forward there is a better way to inform parents or to alert them when there are issues going on with any of those particular systems?
Miles: So, we try to do it as best we can; we can always do better. At the same time, we have systems that go out overnight, and there’s a decision-making point we have to make early in the morning. Busses start rolling around 6-6:30, you know, so at some point you have to make a decision on whether or not the building can get cool if they find the problem in time—and the building managers are out, the maintenance teams are out just to make sure, early in the morning, whether there’s a problem. But let’s say something goes down at 7 or 8. Do you want to close school the whole day? Closing a school or moving kids to another school is a really a tough thing for parents. Think about it. I mean, are they going to leave work? They’re going to pick up the kid or, you know, get a babysitter? Can they afford a babysitter? I mean, there’s all kinds of questions. So, we try to keep the schools open. So, at 7:00, that’s why I get involved because I’m the decision-maker for closing a school or for moving kids from one school to another. Inside the building, that’s a principal’s decision, right? If these four rooms are hot, they’re moving to a cooler place, and that happens, too. But as far as closing a school, we try not to do that. So, we will make the best decisions we can to keep the kids in school, but at some point, if it gets too hot—and we said 82 degrees is too hot—I mean, you know, you can be outside in 82 degrees, and it’s not dangerous. But, if it’s over that for an extended period of time, that’s not good for kids. So, the first thing we try to do is when it gets to 78, we start thinking about, “Okay, what’s the plan B? What are we going to do if it doesn’t cool in the next 30 minutes or an hour? Can we move kids to a different room? Can we move kids to a different school if it’s nearby?” And if the answer to those two questions is no, then we will close the school once it stays at 82 for a while.
Jeffers: We’ve been talking, you know, primarily about the heat. It’s still hot here in Houston in September. So, we may be dealing with that for a while. But on the flip side of the problems can be colder weather also. So, can you talk a little bit about what’s being done proactively to prepare those systems or pipes or whatnot for that?
Miles: When I say air conditioning, it’s actually heating and cooling systems, right? So, in the winter, it’ll be in February or March, it might be the heating side of the same system. They’ll follow the same protocols as far as making sure early on, if the heating is working in the building is not too cold, but also, they have a regular maintenance program. It’s preventative on the on the one hand, and then there are traditional schools that we know, just like we know the ones that have a heating problem, they have a cooling problem. Look, that the solution has to be long term. Long term means we have to put in new systems. We need new heating and cooling systems in many of our schools. That’s the long, long-term plan. In the short term, you know, we’re going around with the maintenance team, trying to get ahead of the problem every day by getting there early, by making sure we have preventative maintenance, by having a regular schedule and spending some capital improvements in the meantime. But, long term, we’re going to need, more resources, a better investment in our heating and cooling systems.
Jeffers: What would you like parents to know? You know, the one to call a call center or have concerns and want to know who’s fielding these concerns and who’s fixing them? What would you tell them to put some of their fears or their concerns at ease?
Miles: My administration, the teams are now working—I don’t know if you were told—with a unit concept, meaning we’re way more responsive. So, when a principal picks up the phone because it’s a problem he or she cannot solve in the school, and they call these command centers in each division; it’s a help center that’s closer to the schools and more responsive. That way, we can ensure that our kids and the facilities are getting the support and the repairs that they need as fast as we can. We’re going to keep our kids safe; that’s our number one goal. We got to have kids in a warm or cool environment, depending on the weather, a comfortable learning environment, so that they can thrive. We’re going to do that. Our last resort is to send them home. I don’t want to do that. I think that’s a problem for parents that we don’t want to pass off on them. So, we’re going to do everything we can to keep the schools open.