SAN ANTONIO — We're now in week two of the school year for the San Antonio ISD, and the district continues to battle the heat that is taking its toll on some of its air conditioning systems.
Leslie Price, an SAISD Spokesperson told us, "We've got a lot of heat right now outside and it is really testing some of those older systems."
Last week, parents reported about 10 schools with outages. Children at Burbank High School were sent to the gym to cool down. Today, Brackenridge High School and Kelly Elementary School were added to the list of campuses having issues.
At Brackenridge, the A/C wasn't operating until 8 a.m. "The system came on this morning, so luckily it wasn't in the middle of the day. It came on this morning, but it takes time to cool all that down," said Price.
Brackenridge High School is one of the 13 schools in the district currently undergoing renovations. There are 92 schools in all. The district says when the main A/C unit goes out they rush in portable units into the classrooms to keep the students cool and as comfortable as possible. Price said, "We do have a task force that's ready and send out technicians whenever we hear of an issue, and we've got the fans and portable AC units to help cool while work is being done."
At Kelly Elementary School, they had a technician working on the A/C most of the day; until it was fixed, they moved students to the air-conditioned parts of campus. Price added, "It's a short term solution. Longer-term of course, we want to have newer systems in as many schools as we can through our bond work."
The bond work is what replaces the older air conditioning systems, along with other old infrastructure. Price said, "We will have to continue this overtime to make sure all of the schools are kept up so their systems are running well."