In a scramble to make sure students stay cool during the State of Texas Assessments Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) testing next week, portable A/C units are being brought in to compensate for a non-working A/C system, affecting the middle school classrooms at Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School in Dallas.
Parents say the air conditioning in the middle school section of the 6-12th grade campus hasn’t worked for weeks, but with state testing beginning for some students on Monday, PTSA President Kim Brown was looking for a faster fix to address complaints from students about hot classrooms even on mild weather days.
“Even though the weather is fair outside, it tends to get hot no matter what is going on outside,” said Brown. She said lots warm bodies in older classrooms without steady ventilation get hot quickly.
Wednesday night, parents were working on gathering window units to cool classrooms in time for testing on Monday.
DISD says the procurement process to replace the broken air handling unit is underway. The cost may be as much as $50,000. There were seven portable A/C units in the middle school section of the building. By Thursday afternoon, the district added another 14.
“On a permanent level, we need to look at making sure that A/C unit is either replaced or repaired to the place that it needs to be,” said Brown.
A DISD spokesperson said while the procurement process started this week, it's unclear when the work to replace the system would be complete.
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Irma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School in 2011 and 2017. The all-girls magnet school is located in Fair Park. Dallas Central Appraisal District Records state the building was built in 1990.
The parent of an 8th grader at the school says she’s confident the district would move forward on a fix.
“I know they’re trying to take steps to make sure the girls are comfortable next week. These are our girls, these are great girls. This is the cream of the crop here in Dallas,” said Carrie Redmond.
“They’re going to take care of our girls, I have no doubt.”
