On the first day of school, Zoe Hollingsworth (11) entered room 424. While she expected her main focus to be chemistry, she spent her class period focusing on the sweltering heat. Between the rustling noise of students unzipping their jackets, the whispered complaints, and dripping of sweat, the promise of scientific exploration was drowned out by the noise of the heat. One noise absent from the room, however, was the humming of air conditioning. 

“There’s definitely a fluctuation,” said Hollingsworth. “When you walk into class it’s super hot and you’re fanning yourself, and then you walk out and you’re like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so cold’, so you put your jacket on, and all that.”

“It impacts the way I’m thinking. Just because it’s harder to think when it’s super hot,” she added.

However, this is not only a problem in room 424. Other students also found themselves in similar situations, like in room 430, in physics and chemistry teacher Steven Wozniak’s class, in which the whispering and taking off of jackets motions repeated themselves all over again. 

“Mostly when it’s too hot or too cold outside it really impacts things, and it’s not constant, but it’s frequent enough that it makes it frustrating to deal with,” said Wozniak. “If I had windows I would open them, but obviously Fairview has a terrible lack of windows, so you can’t really regulate on your own very much, other than using fans in the hallways to blow air in and out of your room.”

The issue is certainly noticeable and it’s not new. Especially in the science department, in the 400 hall, it has persisted throughout the years.

“Since I’ve worked at Fairview we’ve had problems with the air conditioning and the HVAC units,” said Wozniak. “I’ve been working here for 18 years now. It’s always been an issue in the beginning of the year when it’s hot outside and the HVAC unit is not blowing air into the room, and also there’s been a number of times in the winter where it’s really cold and you don’t get heat in the room.”

Science teachers are no stranger to solving problems in unique situations. So, during the heat issues at the beginning of each school year, solutions like fans and portable AC units are used to balance out the hot weather.

“One time I had the Fairview Parent Organization purchase fans for us. They paid for fans and they got fans for all the rooms in the science department, because we don’t have thermostats in the room to self regulate. The district controls all that from six miles away, and we can’t even really contact them directly in order to get them to change the temperature when things aren’t good, so self regulation using fans and stuff has kind of been the way we dealt with it,” said Wozniak. “The AP  [assistant principals] this year ended up putting some local air conditioners, which helped a lot, and I appreciate them doing that. However, I wish the district would get their act together and actually take care of the HVAC systems and make them work correctly.”

The problem was widely noticed by students, including Sheamus Murphy (12)., On his first day of school, he instantly realized the change in temperature as he walked through the door for his first class. 

“I noticed that the science hallway is really bad with the AC. I have Physics 2 in one of the classrooms and I don’t know when they’re gonna fix it, but they brought a temporary one,” said Murphy. “It doesn’t help me focus.”

“This problem is definitely really noticeable on the left half of the building compared to the right half,” he added.

The left part of the building, which includes the halls 200, 400 and 600, is where the science department is located, and is undeniably the part of that school that has more difficulties with the air conditioning equipment than all of the other parts of it. 

“I’m kind of compartmentalized in the science area of the school so I don’t really notice too much in the other areas. I know that the office has had issues in the past but I noticed that the office issues get resolved pretty quickly,” said Wozniak. “To me, it seems as though the science area doesn’t have the same priority as the office area, in the past. This year the AP has been working on it and says that they’re trying to get things resolved, it just seems as though it takes a long time to get it resolved and I question the progress at times,” he added.

Even if this complication has been raising concerns at this hot time of the year, that is really hot, the same can be said about cold weather, in which the previous sound of unzipping jackets and dripping of sweat turn into sounds of chattering teeth and layers and layers of clothes being put back on as the students get to their classroom.

“There was one time the kids were coming in with jackets and hats and mittens and that’s not an environment conducive to effective learning. So I think it has a significant impact, and as a teacher who wants to prioritize learning and the students, it’s very frustrating for me,” said Wozniak.

Fortunately, for both students and staff, after two weeks since the beginning of classes, the faulty ACs have finally been fixed. Nicolas Kosovich, assistant principal and athletic director of the school has been responsible for the communication with the district.

“[BVSD was] communicating with me the whole time and our custodian about what was going on in the delay. It took a little bit of time, there was a lot of people that were doing a lot of work behind the scenes to get us in a better place,” said Kosovich. “The custodians and our HVAC crew do an amazing job, and they definitely don’t want anybody to be uncomfortable in classes and they go out of their way to try to get things fixed as soon as possible.”

Temporary solutions are presented each year, then it gets fixed after a few weeks, but by the time the next school year rolls around it’s broken once again. It seems the actual problem is never resolved.

“The communication is poor at best. I think that we should have some control over the temperature in the room, some way to turn on and off the system if it gets too hot or too cold and it doesn’t seem like the district pays much attention to the teacher’s perspectives in this.”

“The fact that we can’t control the environment and we can’t even contact them to control the environment is beyond frustrating for teachers,” said Wozniak.