From KCRA 3 and the Modesto Bee:
California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg told Twin Rivers School District leaders to fix ongoing issues with heating units to classrooms within the district.
“It’s gotta be fixed right away,” Steinberg told KCRA 3 during a media briefing Tuesday morning.
Steinberg made that remark after reading a report that dozens of classrooms within the district do not have working heaters and are relying on space heaters.
“I ask my teacher, ‘What’s going on?’ It’s cold,” said Adam George, a student at Rio Linda High School.
Hundreds of students in the Twin Rivers Unified School District returned to their classrooms Monday with only portable space heaters for warmth.
Grant Union High School is so cold that students regularly wear blankets with sleeves, such as “Snuggies,” to stay warm inside classrooms, said parent Sascha Vogt. At Woodlake Elementary School, students huddled under blankets and sleeping bags after a copper theft in October damaged the heating system, she said.
Concerns about frigid Twin Rivers classrooms escalated in December when temperatures dipped into the mid-20s and Sacramento experienced its coldest month since 1990 based on an average of overnight lows, according to the National Weather Service.
District officials acknowledge that many of their classrooms lack functional heating systems and attribute the problem to aging facilities with units badly in need of repair and replacement. They say they are doing their best to keep up with repairs despite a lack of facilities money in the north Sacramento area district that serves 31,600 students.
During particularly hot or cold days, teachers have taken to emailing pictures of their classroom thermostats to their union leaders, said Kristin Finney, president of Twin Rivers United Educators. One photo from early December reads 44 degrees. Another from Grant Union High School in September shows a 91-degree temperature.
Anger over the lack of heat and air conditioning in classrooms peaked after parents learned the district had organized a 100-day celebration of Superintendent Steven Martinez’s tenure in November. The invitation-only breakfast was held at the Aerospace Museum of California in North Highlands.
Vogt brought a petition to the school board on Dec. 10 with some 800 signatures under the heading “Before you have a party, please provide heat for all our students.”
“We are going to make necessary repairs,” Martinez said before winter break. The district has hired an outside company which is working around the clock to fix the problem, he said. “We’re not trying to make an excuse.”
The district fixed the damaged heating system at Woodlake Elementary in mid-December. On Friday, district officials reported that about 80 heating units had been repaired over winter break, lowering the number of classrooms without heating units to 30.
“It’s wonderful news,” said Kim Barnett, interim chief business officer for the district. “They have been working really hard for the last three weeks.”
New heating and air conditioning systems, purchased for Grant Union High in summer 2010, remain uninstalled after district personnel realized they would have to retrofit the roof. District officials now say the work will be completed in April.
“There were kids that came (to Grant) as freshmen and are seniors now, and they never had heat and air,” said Gregory Jefferson of the Del Paso Heights Community Association.
