JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Parents and students have been sounding the alarm since the first day of school: broken and failing air conditioning in Duval County classrooms during a heat wave.
On Friday afternoon, Duval County Public Schools is set to address those concerns directly.
The district plans to address intermittent air conditioning outages across schools and Jim Culbert, Chief of Operations and Technology Services for Duval County Public Schools, will take questions from the media.
(News4JAX plans to livestream the news conference at 2:30 p.m. in the video player above)
The problem came to a head Wednesday morning when smoke from a broken air-handler motor forced an early evacuation at Crown Point Elementary School. About 20 students who had already been dropped off were safely relocated to Mandarin Middle School, according to Tatyana Wimberly, DCPS Chief Communications Officer.
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But parents say the problem is much bigger than one school.
One Crown Point parent told News4JAX her fourth-grade son has been without air conditioning since the first day of school — last Monday.
“He’s been very uncomfortable. He’s breathing more heavily. He has asthma,” she said. “And it’s been, apparently, in the 90s in their classroom.”
News4JAX has received multiple tips, calls, and emails from parents reporting AC failures across the district — including at Stanton College Prep, Westview K-8, and Riverside High School.
Jacaelah Magee, a junior at Riverside High School, described what it feels like inside her classroom.
“Considering it’s like 100 degrees on a daily basis, I would say like 110, 111,” she said. “It’s like sweating in class. If there’s a bunch of people with fans — electric and folding — it’s really hot to the point it’s unbearable.”
News4JAX asked DCPS about the AC situation at three of the schools parents flagged. The answers were different for each one.
- Westview K-8: A chiller malfunctioned Monday, knocking out air conditioning in several classrooms. District maintenance crews resolved the issue Monday afternoon. ESE and CSS classrooms were not affected.
- Riverside High School: An electrical issue caused the outage. The school says all AC units are now back online and functioning normally. As a proactive measure this past summer, the school replaced the chiller in the impacted building.
- Stanton College Prep: The situation is less resolved. In a letter to families this week, Principal Majova-Seane wrote: “We have been informed that the maintenance team will be making its way to our school to inspect and address our chillers.” As of this week, families were still waiting for that visit.
Even at schools where the district says repairs have been made, some parents say they are not convinced the problem is fully behind them.