School air conditioning gets council hot under the collar

By Bryan P. Sears
Posted: May 15, 2009

Oliver

Frustration boiled over during Thursday’s council budget hearing on the school system budget, as councilmen attempted to find out if air conditioning was ever planned for the recently renovated Ridgely Middle School.

As reported this week in Jay’s Thompson’s story in the Towson Times, parents at the school have complained that the building lacks air conditioning. New energy efficient windows that were installed as part of the renovations don’t open enough to allow for air flow. The result is a building that sometimes gets as hot as 90 degrees or more, according to parents.

The council asked school officials to discuss the issue but became unhappy with what they saw as a lack of a straightforward answer.

You know it’s getting rough when the typically quiet and affable Ken Oliver blurts out an expletive.

“This is a bunch of bulls**t,” Oliver said, interrupting a school official who had offered a long explanation that didn’t appear to answer whether the school was supposed to get air conditioning or not.

That’s when Councilman Kevin Kamenetz stepped in and asked if the air conditioning had ever been planned for the school.

“Talk specifically about Ridgely,” Kamenetz said.

But when the official’s answer started to stray, Kamenetz interjected.

“Was there air conditioning planned for Ridgely Middle? It’s a yes or no answer,” Kamenetz said.

Councilmen Sam Moxley and Bryan McIntire joined in. Moxley and Oliver both asked, in turn, for school officials to “answer the question.”

“Doctor, answer the question here because your employee is not,” Kamenetz finally said to Joe Hairston, Baltimore County Public Schools superintendent.

School officials eventually acknowledged that the building was designed to have air conditioning as an option, but the new windows were meant for a school that was air conditioned.

McIntire said he is constantly asked about the issue by parents in his district.

“If a day goes by that I don’t hear about (Ridgely) I’m going to check the obituaries,” McIntire said.

“Frankly, it makes us look stupid, I don’t know if it’s a problem with the education department or the government side of the county but to prepare a school for air conditioning with windows designed for an air conditioned building and then to not put the air conditioning in makes us look stupid; that we don’t plan ahead.

“Now what are we going to do about Ridgely and when are we going to do it?” McIntire asked.

“We can’t give you an answer right now,” Hairston said, adding, “There’s no easy answer.”

Hairston promised to get back to the council in a month.

“We can sit down and talk rationally about this,” Hairston told McIntire and the council.

Hairston later made it clear that while he was willing to come back in a month to talk to the council about Ridgely Middle School, he wasn’t guaranteeing a complete answer then, either.

Comment on this entry • View all 5 responses

user parentintowson says...

Thank you so much for this article, exposing the heat issues since the renovation at Ridgely Middle School! I wanted to respond to another reader who thought this situation wasn't unique to Ridgely. Ridgely actually IS in a unique situation. BCPS has been asked repeatedly if this new window style is being installed anywhere else and they have insisted it isn't. I think big lessons have been learned here: SCHOOLS THAT AREN'T AIR CONDITIONED NEED WINDOWS THAT OPEN. In Ridgely's case, the original plan called for air conditioning and the windows as designed were perfect. When air conditioning was cut due to budget concerns, no one thought to change the window plan. As a result, the classrooms are 5-10 degrees hotter than outside! In schools properly designed for no air conditioning, the inside temps should not be higher than outside temps since the goal is adequate airflow. It is very unfortunate that Baltimore County lags far behind all surrounding counties in air conditioning its schools and this is a real shame. This needs to change in a hot humid climate such as Baltimore. The situation at Ridgely is particularly bad due to lack of adequate airflow. I hope the County Executive will step in and fix it.

Posted 9:51 AM, 05.17.09

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user ridgelyparent says...

If Hairston would like to sit down and "talk rationally about this" issue, perhaps he should do it in a second floor classroom at Ridgely Middle with unopening windows on a hot day next week. It is very easy to act like "there is no easy answer" when you are doing so from your airconditioned office where you made the stupid decision to install unopening windows in an unairconditioned school. Our children are coming home ill, sick with exaustion and migrane headaches. They are being tortured in a building that should be shut down by the health department until airconditioning is installed. This needs to be fixed NOW! Parents should form a class action suit against the County to seek damages for what our children have been made to suffer for the past two years. That will cost the county more than air chillers to fix the situation.

Posted 2:37 PM, 05.17.09

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user parentintowson says...

I didn't take offense to Councilman Oliver's comment. I was there and he expressed what everyone in the meeting was thinking. He just had the guts to say it.

Posted 10:22 PM, 05.17.09

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user davidmarks1 says...

The issue of aging and improperly-ventilated schools needs to be front and center in Baltimore County. As late as 1990, elementary schools were being built in Perry Hall that lacked air conditioning. It's unfortunate that when Baltimore County had large surpluses in the earlier part of this decade, its leaders did not use these surpluses to fund more robust capital improvements and purchase land for new schools.

Posted 8:33 AM, 05.18.09

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user stevetowson says...

David... AGREED!... and when election time comes folks should vote like they want this, and many other ongoing issues resolved.

Posted 9:47 AM, 05.18.09

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