HOUSTON — Air conditioning problems at the Houston Independent School District early in the school year were more widespread than HISD officials initially disclosed, according to a KHOU 11 Investigates analysis of work orders.
The district juggled 1,540 HVAC issues in the first three weeks of August alone. The work order requests came from nearly every HISD campus -- 246 of 274 schools -- and a handful of administrative buildings. And it comes at the same time there are fewer repair technicians on staff.
"This is news to me," Poe Elementary School parent Tajai Barrs said when she was shown district records. She has a first grader at Poe Elementary School. "I wouldn't even be able to concentrate as a child if I'm hot."
Poe was the school with the second-most work order requests with 25 in the first three weeks of the school year.
Another Poe parent with a fifth grade daughter said he experienced the issues himself.
"It's crazy, I know. Even when we came to the open house before school started, the A/C was out," parent John Chargois said. "So it was like 80 something degrees when we were doing meet the teacher and all that kind of stuff."
Like Poe, there were four schools that had more than 20 A/C work orders from Aug. 1 through Aug. 21. The other schools were Waltrip High School with 27, Attucks Middle School with 25 and Roland P. Harris Elementary School with 23.
Thirty-seven more campuses had 10 or more work orders during that time. One of those was TH Rogers, which shut down for a day while it dealt with A/C problems.
Superintendent Mike Miles briefly addressed parent complaints back in August, saying, "I don’t know exactly how many schools had A/C issues." At the time, district officials only acknowledged a handful of schools with A/C issues.
But district records, including the 1,540 air conditioning work orders, revealed the problem touched nearly every campus districtwide.
And those numbers come with fewer experienced repair technicians to go around. Employee records show last year in August, there were 57 Senior HVAC Repairers, but this past August, there were only 32, a 43% drop.
"Why? You know, with so many work orders, why would they cut, you know, the amount of workers by half when it's obviously a big need, you know?" Chargois said.
"I mean why would you reduce? Why wouldn’t you increase?" Faye Wells said.
HISD Chief of Facilities & Maintenance Alishia Jolivette was asked why there are so many fewer workers who specialize in HVAC repairs in the district. She pointed to a newly created position -- a building services manager -- who is assigned to every campus.
"That building services manager is responsible not just for overseeing the custodial, but everything internal as well as external of that particular facility," Jolivette said.
She conceded that the new position is not an HVAC expert.
"Maybe not, but they are being trained on HVAC, electrical, structural, plumbing. So they are responsible for all things for their campus," she said.