Emily Hays Photo
Wexler-Grant Community School: brrrr.
Pre-Pandemic File Photo
Teachers union prez Cicarella: Zero maintenance for years.
Jackets have become a common addition to the Wexler-Grant school uniform — as students have been directed to wear them during class because of a malfunctioning heating system.
Last Friday, for instance, Principal David Diah asked students over the intercom system to put on their hats and gloves too, because the heat was out. Soon after, he sent the kids home because the school was too cold.
School has been out since then because of holidays and snow days.
“It’s quite disturbing that we can’t have heat in the building where we are supposed to have kids learn,” said a Wexler-Grant parent of three, Nikki Draper.
Draper, and two teachers who asked to remain anonymous because of fears of retaliation, detailed years of heat problems at the school.
“Where’s the funding to make sure these kids are kept warm in winter? There is no reason why they should have to be learning with their jackets on,” Draper said.
Wexler-Grant Community School was rebuilt in 2002. Draper’s concern echoes a line of tough questioning from alders at a recent hearing: How have new or recently renovated schools deteriorated so quickly?
The heat problems at Wexler-Grant are not a Covid-19 safety concern. One of two boilers broke on that particular Friday. Air was still circulating, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) safety guidelines; it was just cold air.
The New Haven Board of Education hired Manchester-based engineering company Fuss & O’Neill this fall to inspect all school ventilation systems. The goal was to provide third-party verification that the buildings were safe enough during the Covid-19 pandemic to bring students back. Two schools had to be condemned and closed for good because of deferred maintenance. “Somebody didn’t do the work. Somebody bankrolled the money somewhere. This falls back on the Board of Education and its contractors,” Alder Rosa Santana said at the hearing.
The district has since fixed urgent ventilation problems Fuss & O’Neill found at Wexler-Grant. Some items, like damaged diffusers in the gym, could wait to be fixed until after students came back, according to the company’s report.
File Photo
Principal Diah: No comment on shivering students.
The broken boiler added to the CDC measures and cold of the day to cause Friday’s crisis, according to New Haven Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn.
“The low temperatures in the building were a combination of having one boiler decommissioned because it had cracked, the extreme cold last Friday, and running the external air dampers at 30 percent outside air, the maximum setting recommended for Covid before one risks freezing system components,” Penn said.
The district has been planning to replace both boilers at Wexler-Grant since at least July, when the subject showed up on a report for the board’s Citywide School Building & Stewardship Committee.
New boilers for Wexler-Grant and Fair Haven School will cost around $490,000, according to district estimates. The money is coming from a state grant for improving the schools in most need of repairs in the state’s low-performing “Alliance Districts.” The district will purchase the boilers based on bids from different companies.
Temperatures are back to normal now, according to New Haven Federation of Teachers President Dave Cicarella. The union president looked into the boiler situation. He learned that rooms will still feel drafty, thanks to the amount of outdoor air coming in as a Covid-19 safety precaution.
Principal David Diah did not respond to requests for comment.
Years Of Cold Classrooms
Pre-Pandemic File Photo
Schools CFO Phillip Penn: Combination of factors caused problem.
Students, teachers and paraprofessionals have suffered through cold classrooms at Wexler-Grant for years.
One teacher described setting up space heaters in her room for a month while she waited for someone to fix the heat. She went to the building manager and principal about why nothing was fixed yet and heard different explanations about who was responsible for the delay. Meanwhile, her students wouldn’t know or wouldn’t remember to bring layers and would cluster around the space heaters to keep warm.
“Their arms are inside their shirt because they’re cold. That’s where the behavior issues arise,” she said.
In general, the building manager responds to her concerns promptly. He’s there immediately to clean up if a student threw up, for example.
Another teacher talked about how some classrooms are so hot that someone faints, while another classroom never has heat. Hers is one of the classrooms where the heat never stays fixed for long and the vents only blow out cold air.
“The heat works for a week and then breaks. It’s been an ongoing problem. I think there’s a lot of bandaids over bigger issues,” she said.
If her heat is broken on Monday morning, the building manager will come into her classroom to tinker with the heat system by Thursday or Friday. The heat will be broken again within the same day or the next day. It’s the same story with contractors, she said.
When she taught at another school in the district with similar demographics, she never saw maintenance problems as an issue. It seemed like the amount of money going to the two schools was similar, just that personnel at the previous school were particularly committed to solving maintenance issues.
Both Wexler-Grant teachers said they fear disciplinary action for speaking to the press if identified. Both said they also fear that the heat maintenance issues indicated larger ventilation problems that could endanger students and staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. (The two systems do work independently though.)
Emily Hays Photo
Nikki Draper is the mother of a third grader, a fourth grader and a sixth grader at Wexler-Grant. Her two younger kids are learning in-person; she works long hours, and her parents have not been able to tutor her children through remote learning. Her children have all made the honor roll at least once a year, she said; now one is failing. Her sixth grader will not have the option of in-person learning until March 4.
“One can go four days a week, one two days and another can’t go at all. That’s a lot. It’s overwhelming at times, honestly,” Draper said. “I didn’t take a teaching job. You’re expecting me to work 45 hours a week, be a mom and be a teacher. You’re putting a lot on the parents.”
Draper was in a doctor’s appointment when she got the call on Friday, Feb. 12, that Wexler-Grant was dismissing in-person learners around 10 a.m. because the school was too cold. She had to get her kids’ father to pick them up.
She was upset but not terribly surprised by the dismissal. Her oldest has been attending Wexler-Grant for six years and she can remember similar issues happening on and off three or four of those years. Her kids would tell her when they got home that they had to wear their jackets over their uniforms again at school.
“They can’t wear sweatshirts or hoodies rather than the [uniform’s] polo shirt and a jacket. It really shouldn’t matter what they’re wearing, so they can learn without a big, puffy jacket,” Draper said. “It’s uncomfortable for me to stay in my jacket, and I’m just driving.”
Wexler-Grant playground
Cicarella said that this is actually the first time in years that school ventilation systems look this good. In his many years as union president, he has seen the district’s financial and operating officers defer maintenance over and over again, even on brand-new buildings, he said.
“Some items were ‘next year’ projects for seven or eight years. And then something would break and it would be, ‘That’s an expensive piece of equipment. We don’t have the money for that,’” Cicarella said.
The delay is partially because the district has only a small portion of its budget left after salaries and utilities. It’s also in how the district has chosen to spend the few discretionary dollars it has.
Given the small budget for maintenance, facilities staff people have done a remarkable job, according to Cicarella. He’s also fairly pleased with how the current batch of administrators has managed to correct many of these maintenance issues during the pandemic.
“The grants have been a godsend. For example, cleaning out the ductwork — no district has the money for that line item,” Cicarella said.
This is a WTF moment. The entire school board should resign. The facilities manager should be fired. This is nothing short of a disgrace. That this has been going on for years, even after an expensive rebuild is malfeasance. How do you expect children to learn in this environment of on again, off again? These boilers didn't last twenty years. If they weren't supposed to last that long - then why were they not replaced long ago? Why does it take a state grant to fund the replacements? This should have been a capital expenditure years ago. This is just the tip of the iceberg on all the deferred maintenance due to improper budgeting and failure to maintain nearly $2 billion in new schools. This is just unbelievable.