School Air-Conditioning Delays

Re “Air-Conditioning Installation at Schools Delayed,” July 11.

As a teacher for 9 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I closely follow the articles and letters regarding my district. I have worked in the San Fernando Valley for 10 years and can attest to the sweltering learning and working conditions in Valley schools without air-conditioning. I and my colleagues have been witnesses to the profound negative impact this situation has had year in and out on learning (or lack thereof) by our students.

I hope the public truly understands that LAUSD downtown, cluster and many local school site administrators’ offices (mine included) have some form of air-conditioning. When we speak of hot classrooms, we’re not complaining of 85 degrees but 90 to 100 degrees or above (thermometers have confirmed this).

Schools, mine included, have been given four, five or more promised dates of air-conditioning completion. All promises to date have been reneged upon. These sweltering conditions in non-air-conditioned schools comprise two or more months of each Valley child’s learning experience each school year. I’m wondering what administrator, school board member or citizen would function efficiently, much less concentrate and learn new skills, were they subject to the conditions my 11-year-olds experience.

Since the Times article regarding moving air-conditioning completion for many Valley schools from October to January (what happened to the promise of August 15th?), I have been to my school to check on progress. I have found that there are more people and trucks than ever before. Air-conditioning personnel are running behind schedule but no one wants to say how many weeks. District and / or air-conditioning personnel are imparting vague, noncommittal information to my school plant manager.

Therefore, these are the promises I’ve decided to make to my school district, should the air-conditioning not be running when classes commence at my school Sept. 8:

* I will never again work for the passage of any bond or measure of any kind that would benefit LAUSD because I--as a citizen, voter and teacher--have been betrayed.

* I will work fervently to communicate the facts of this current air-conditioning debacle to all willing to read or listen.

* I will not renege on my promises.

Clearly, if the air-conditioning projects in all LAUSD schools are not completed soon (in hottest schools first, please), then I’ll have to agree with a colleague who stated to me last year that “the LAUSD administrators and school board do not know how to administrate and cannot be trusted with a dollar.”

LYNN NORMAN

Porter Middle School

Granada Hills