What kind of system is too cumbersome to turn on and off when needed? Are they using a nuclear generator? Only thing to do is for the parents to force the admins who made up the idiotic rule to move their offices into a freezing school.
Chilly School Won’t Turn On Heat
Students and teachers at one DeKalb County [Georgia] school say the freezing temperatures we saw overnight made it awful chilly inside their classrooms. They can’t understand why the school system wouldn’t turn on the heat.
The school system says no matter who cold it gets, it’s their practice to turn the heat on in all schools on October 30. Students and teachers say when the temperatures dip into the 30’s, like it did overnight and this morning, it is hard to study without heat.
“It was freezing. We were doing testing today and I couldn’t even concentrate,” said Briar Vista Elementary School student Beleyou Leulesged.
“It was like you were covered in snow,” said student Kaylah Edwards.
If you thought it was cold outside overnight and at daybreak, students at Briar Vista say it was even colder inside their school most of the day. When students and teachers complained about the frigid conditions and asked for the heat to be turned on, they say they were told they were not going to turn on the heat until Thanksgiving.
A DeKalb County Schools spokesperson told Channel 2 that’s not entirely true. We found out the school district doesn’t turn on the heat system-wide until October 30. And once the heat is on for all schools – it stays on.
“But I mean, what’s the problem if you turn it on now and for the rest of the months,” asked Leulesged.
The school system did tell us that principals can petition to have their heat turned on before October 30. But if it warms up, the heat won’t be turned off – so many principals choose to wait.
Kayla Edwards told us it was tough for students to take their tests because of the chill factor.
“Some people only had on sweaters and they were still complaining about how cold it was,” said Edwards.
Teachers say classrooms that were facing the sun were okay, but the others felt like the North Pole.
“What kind of system is too cumbersome to turn on and off when needed?”
My wife works in the schools and here’s the deal. It has nothing to do with the heating system and everything to do with the school’s budget.
When the school created its budget it allowed for the heating system to be on starting October 30 until a set day in spring.
The second clue is this: “And once the heat is on for all schools – it stays on.”
In other words, to have a predictable heating budget they factor in a start time and end time and then set those dates in stone.
Being educators, they are too stupid to figure out a flexible means of heating the buildings. So they simply figure how much they’re willing to spend and then set the dates accordingly.
My mother-in-law is principal near the schools mentioned and her school had an expansion and part of the old building was converted from classrooms to offices. The converted section had the radiators ripped out and they realized yesterday that no one put in the new heating system for the office. So they don’t even have the option of turning on the heat yet!
Sounds like my department at the university. No matter how cold it is, the heat doesn’t come on until a certain day. Then once they do there is no turning it down. It is so hot that we have to turn on our window air conditioners and open the windows at each end of the hallway.
“Sounds like my department at the university….”
Yet another group of educators who lack the ability to create a flexible budget. The sad part is that we’re paying a lot of money to keep these morons employed. No, the sad part is we’re paying these people a lot of money to educate our kids!
My apartment building uses a climate control system in which both heat and air conditioning are provided through a water circulation system – the boiler heats, and the chiller cools water which is circulated to each apartment’s air handler.
The heat and the air conditioning cannot be run at the same time, you can have one or the other, but not both. The whole system must be shut down briefly in the spring and the fall, to switch from one system to the other.
In our case, the switchover date from air conditioning to heat is October 15, and the switchover date from heat to air conditioning is May 1. This is in the Washington DC metro area – one would expect that given Atlanta’s slightly warmer weather, the date of the fall changeover would be later and the date of the spring changeover would be earlier.
Frank,
In Toronto, all the condos and apartments have the same type of system. A one week switchover to provide heat or cooling. There’s always that cusp week where the weather gets hot enough for A/C, and then drops the next day that the tenants are thankful they still have the heat on. And reverse for the other season change of course!
I think most non-commercial / professional offices are similar. Of course, in high-rise towers which charge thousands per square foot, you damn well better believe you’ll get both heat and cool at the same time.
Granted some older HVAC systems require manual switch from heat to cooling. Some buildings even use chillers and boilers year round to maintain circulating water temperature. I think you’ll find this has to do more with the budget alloted for fuel oil.
its that cold in georgia already… wow…
There should be a law that when the first Christmas-pimping advertisement appears, the heat must be turned on. (Not sure what kind of HVAC system that school is using, but don’t they have a THERMOSTAT? If the temperature rises again into the temperate zone, doesn’t the heat GO BACK OFF AGAIN? Or are they using the modern-day equivalent of a fireplace, where if it’s “on”, it’s producing heat all the time??)
Named –
Yes, the weeks immediately before and after the changeover are a nightmare for our management. Half the people are too hot and want the A/C switched on in advance of the date (or are upset that it was switched off “too early”), and the reverse for the other half of the people who are too cold. In addition to the varying “personal thermostats”, apartments on the south side of the building to stay significantly warmer/hotter than those the north side of the building.
In newer water-based HVAC systems, instead of having a passive air handler (just a coil and a fan), each unit has a heat pump, which can extract heat even when the furnace has been turned off, and chill the air even if the boiler is on – so one can have heat and cooling whenever one wants it, regardless of the time of year.
I suspect we could use an HVAC expert in here…and I’m not that guy…but I have a house with hot water heat, and lived with steam as a renter once. No doubt the GA system is hot water or steam. Steam systems cannot be turned on and off willy-nilly. Pressurizing and depressurizing the system is a big deal. Budgets certainly drive the dates (will you pay more taxes so the kids will be more comfortable? like hell you will!) but the 40-year old systems in most older schools are fragile.
#1 says it all
Money > Kids
Thats why education sucks in this country
SN–
Educators aren’t the ones making decisions on how facilities are run. There’s plenty to be critical of in the education system. How about taking on a topic that’s actually relevant to what teachers do, instead of finding whatever flimsy and far-fetched excuse you can think of to jump down the throat of educators?
Oh wait, public education probably failed you too, hence your inability to create a cogent and reasoned argument.
Kim.
I take it you’re a teacher?
#13, What is the problem with this topic? I haven’t seen anyone criticizing the teachers for the conditions? In fact, the lead sentence mentions BOTH teachers and students were awfully chilly.
So, what is YOUR point? Or are you just trolling, looking to start an argument somewhere.
#14, Angel, teachers are generally more intelligent then that.
#13 – There’s plenty to be critical of in the education system. How about taking on a topic that’s actually relevant to what teachers do, instead of finding whatever flimsy and far-fetched excuse you can think of to jump down the throat of educators?
Comment by Kim Cavanaugh — 10/25/2006 @ 10:12 am
I love you Kim. Please marry me.
#12 Money > Kids
Thats why education sucks in this country
Comment by JohnHenriAllyn — 10/25/2006 @ 7:33 am
I reject the premise that education sucks in this country. Send your kids to public high school in Winnetka, IL they might go to New Trier, which is a public school…
http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/
If you are so blessed, your kid may well write his or her own ticket to college.
There are many exceptional schools in the US. What there isn’t is a sense of social justice. We only fund schools where money already is. Conservatives like to complain about the cost per student… but these figures represent a lot of waste and BS at the administrative level, and no matter what any culture warrior wants you to believe, it is not just the federal government that generates the waste… In fact, for all the faults, the Department of Education at the federal level is the last safeguard of the public school’s integrity.
Pay teachers more. Train teachers better. Reduce administrative overhead. And REDISTRIBUTE THE GODDAMN WEALTH and fuck anyone who calls you a communist. Schools should be like cathedrals to education… Temples of logic, reason, and knowledge… They should be Meccas of inspiration for future leaders, researchers, lawyers, doctors, business mavericks, and so on. And not just the New Triers, but the rural and inner city schools too. They should be beacons of hope, not reminders of our social failures.
I lived in a studio apartment in nyc where the legal rent was $1,745 and the landlord was as cheap as they come. The legal temperature that a landlord must maintain during the winter months in a nyc building is 67 degrees farenheit. The Radio Shack digital thermometer with one decimal point readings was always, when I got home from work, 66.6 degrees. Not kidding. I won’t mention the landlord’s ethnicity but sometimes stereotypes are right on the money.
#15–
I wasn’t commenting on the story, but rather the reaction posted by SN in #1 and #4:
Being educators, they are too stupid to… and
The sad part is that we’re paying a lot of money to keep these morons employed.
That’s what I object to.
KC
I could do a whole series of posts on the stupidity of Dekalb County. Let’s see, where’s that stack– I mean box– of newspaper clippings….
Your landlord may be allegedly cheap, but you weren’t living in a poverty-stricken area.
Actually the legal requirement is only 55 degrees, not 67. And the outside temperature has to drop below 45 degrees for that requirement to kick in.
Yep, scratch a lunatic conspiracy theorist, and get a Jew-hater. I’m not the least bit surprised.