SHAWNEE, Kan. — The Kansas City metro finally got its first real heat wave of the summer and it appeared that several area schools just couldn’t keep up with the rising temperatures.
The St. Joseph school district is releasing students three hours early on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday due to the heat. Bishop Leblond High School in St. Joseph will be released at 11:55 for the rest of the week.
On Monday, at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, many students and staff struggled in the heat and humidity due to a mechanical malfunction with its air conditioner.
Temperatures inside the building heated up quickly. When kids got to school, they were greeted with lots of fans running, and temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80s.
“Oh yeah, it was really hot, I walked to school and was burning. But when I went inside it was the same as outside so it was like, ok,” SMNW sophomore Shannon Bartkowski said.
“In every single class I wanted to fall asleep because when it`s warm, it`s nap time, so I had a hard time today,” SMNW sophomore Jarrett Hale said.
SMNW wasn’t the only school that had problems. Students at Wyandotte and Schlagle high schools related. The schools also had fans running, trying to help cool the air inside.
But the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools said it wasn`t a mechanical problem that kept its temperatures high. The problem was that the district turns down the air conditioning over the weekend and at night to conserve energy and save money.
“What we found this morning is that some of our buildings are having trouble because it`s so hot and humid, coming back to temperature, it`s taking a little bit longer,” David Smith, KCKPS’ Chief of Staff, said. “But we`re working on it and probably what we`ll do for the next week is take that system offline and go ahead and keep buildings cool 24-7. We want to save money and do the right thing for the environment but we also have to keep kids and teachers cool.”
Most of the schools that had issues in on Monday morning were cooled off by noon. But the next concern for schools is keeping kids cool during after school activities, like football practice.
“At a certain point they take more frequent breaks, sometimes they practice without pads so it depends on how hot it gets and the heat index but we have to be careful with our kids and gradually build up tolerance,” Smith said.
A KCKPS alternative school did have a mechanical problem, a compressor failure, but the mechanics got that fixed. All the schools said it was never hot enough that they thought they would have to send kids home early.
