Air conditioning and bus routes: HISD parent’s frustrations

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports Houston ISD parents brought a plethora of first-week-of-school woes to the Board of Managers Thursday, including unassigned bus routes, unkempt school grounds and inadequate air conditioning in classrooms and on buses. School kicked off Monday after a flurry of parent phone calls for bus route assignments, with many families receiving route information over email Sunday for students who were not their children. Many schools continue to have air conditioning issues, leaving classroom temperatures climbing toward the district’s heat threshold of 82 degrees Fahrenheit when the district opts to move children. Crockett Elementary parent Mychela Predium asked for cool air for her daughter, who has asthma, and her classmates. She was concerned classroom conditions could contribute to another asthma attack and emergency room visit.

“I can no longer hold my tongue because my daughter can’t hold her breath,” Predium said. Teisha Mayes, who volunteered at a Crockett dance class last year, said the air conditioning was broken numerous times then. She said this week the dance classroom had no air conditioning the first week of school, forcing the children to dance in the hallway. She called the school’s air conditioning outages unacceptable and pointed out that she spotted new spin bikes on campus, brought there as part of the New Education System reforms under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles. “Why weren’t these funds used to fix the AC?” Mayes said. “Our priority should be creating a cool, consistent environment where children and teachers can thrive.” The district aims to keep classrooms between 70 to 75 degrees, Miles said. “I said to the board and to our community, we will fight the air conditioning battle every day until October,” Miles said, adding they had to move students due to air conditioning issues from Montgomery Elementary School to another school Thursday.