Parents and teachers at schools across San Diego County are raising concerns about students learning in extremely hot classrooms as a heat wave pushes temperatures into the triple digits in some areas.<\/p>\n
Thermometers have recorded classroom temperatures into the 90s, while parents and teachers at Gage Elementary School in San Carlos say broken air conditioning has left students sitting in the heat for hours without a cooler alternative.<\/p>\n
Taylor Hammond, whose 6-year-old son attends Gage Elementary, said the heat is affecting his child.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe comes home with heat rashes. He comes home complaining that his classroom is hot,” Hammond said.<\/p>\n
Hammond said his son’s teacher has been struggling with the classroom conditions since the beginning of the school year and has sought help from families.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis teacher basically was like, ‘hey, can you guys help me? Like, I’m struggling. I’m bringing spray bottles from home to spray the kids down in the classroom.'”<\/p>\n
Hammond said the teacher also asked parents to put pressure on administrators and bring fans into the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought that was kind of bizarre,” Hammond said.<\/p>\n
According to Hammond, the classroom reached 89 degrees over the past two days, with even hotter conditions outside and very little breeze.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday in this area, it was 106 degrees… I don’t even leave my dog at home in that kind of temperature,\u201d Hammond said.<\/p>\n
Hammond said he contacted the school principal, the County Board of Education and the school district about his concerns. He said the district told him it would look into the situation.<\/p>\n
San Diego Unified School District said its classrooms have air conditioning but acknowledged that malfunctions can occur when units work overtime during extreme heat.<\/p>\n
The District released the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Diego Unified school classrooms have air conditioning, and during extreme heat when the units are working overtime malfunctions can happen. Our HVAC team has been working with the school directly to address the malfunction. Currently the classroom has working air conditioning, and the technician will be doing a status check on Friday.”<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s important for families to understand alternative spaces with working air conditioners, including other classrooms and the library, have been made available to ensure the safety of our students and educators during this heat wave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammond said his son has not been moved to one of those alternative spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought maybe they would move him to another classroom, or they would kind of make sure that something was accommodated … I understand that air conditioning breaks, you know, maintenance happens. There’s backlog issues and I understand that. But I think it’s been an unacceptable for the duration that it\u2019s been going on,” Hammond said.<\/p>\n
Similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in San Diego County. NBC San Diego has received reports of classrooms reaching 90 degrees in the Oceanside Unified School District. The district said it has multiple measures available, including portable air conditioners and fans to help keep classrooms cool.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents and teachers at schools across San Diego County are raising concerns about students learning in extremely hot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,84,76,75,1354,2199,634,19],"class_list":["post-460107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-unified-school-district","tag-san-diego-weather","tag-severe-weather","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}