For years students and staff at Park High School have been asking “Why is it so hot in here?” Large portions of the school completely lack air conditioning, and on hot days the temperature on the third and second floor will easily climb to above 80 degrees.
When asked for comments about the lack of air conditioning in the building multiple teachers and students expressed how hot it could get. “It’s uncomfortable, warm, sweaty, stuffy, not a lot of circulation” said Ms. Cherney.
Fellow math teacher Mr. Dakwar commented, “I have to open all the windows. It’s very uncomfortable.”
Some students also expressed feeling about the lack of air conditioning in the building “It’s abhorrent all the time.” sophomore, Nathaniel Vallejos added.
But why is there no air conditioning? The original building was constructed in 1929, 30 years before air conditioning was commonplace. This reflects that the additions, the first of which were built in 1968, were all built with air conditioning.
When asked if they thought that the addition of air conditioning might help them work better, everyone agreed that it certainly would. “It’s just easier to learn when you’re comfortable,” said Cherney.
Vallejos agreed, saying “Yes, absolutely, it would be very refreshing to have cold air in class while it’s 300 degrees outside.”
Due to the inconsistent design of the building there is very little pattern to where air there is and isn’t air conditioning, except that generally, newer parts of the building are more likely to have air conditioning. This leads to multiple instances of rooms right next each other having or lacking air conditioning.
This must be incredibly wasteful, and seems like an oversight that should have been fixed long ago, so why hasn’t it?
There is one theory that points to why we have not had new air conditioning installed, the diverting of funds toward Case High School.
In June of last year RUSD began the demolition and reconstruction of Case’s rubber track. In total the project cost $10.3 million dollars and was completed in January of 2024. Despite Case already having an 8 lane rubber track the school board opted to rebuild it and add new facilities, all while Park and Horlick are stuck with 5 and 6 lane asphalt tracks respectively. The school board previously decided to build the brand new Aquatic Center right next to Case as well, spending $22 million on the project. Both of these projects point to a worrying trend of large sums of money being given to Case instead of the other schools in the district, schools who arguably need the money more than Case.
When asked if there were any current or future plans to add air conditioning to the building, Park building engineer Mr. Shekels explained that in the 2020 referendum there is money allocated to maintain our current air conditioning systems, but not to add any new air conditioning to the areas that need it. He added that there were proposed plans to have a new unit installed; however, he had not heard anything more.
The lack of air conditioning in the building is a serious issue that needs addressing, and it’s hard to believe that the problem has been pushed back for so many years. Also, the allocation of funds in the district towards Case points to a potentially much larger issue. If air conditioning was added to the rest of the school, it would be met with a warm (or cool) welcome from students and staff alike.
