By Ben Joravsky
Welcome to education in Chicago, where on the eve of the 21st century few of the city’s 580 schools have air-conditioned classrooms.
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“One can argue for or against year-round schooling, but you shouldn’t implement it without air-conditioning–at least not in our climate,” says Dion Miller Perez, a community organizer for the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, a not-for-profit government-spending watchdog. “The schools weren’t built to function in the heat of summer. If you’re going to implement a policy you have to realize there will be ramifications. And you have to adjust to those ramifications.”
Perez calls it a classic example of one-step-forward, one-step-back Chicago bureaucracy. A policy intended to foster education has in some ways made things worse.
When Buckingham agreed to go year-round, it expected air-conditioning. “At one time it was promised as an incentive,” says Beach. “Needless to say, we’re still waiting.”
“We don’t even have sufficient heat–how can they handle air conditioners?” says Griffin. “In the dead of winter there are teachers who wear shirtsleeves because their rooms are so hot. Then you have teachers on the other end of the building who are wearing winter coats because their rooms are so cold.”
“It’s hot in our school, especially on the third floor, but it isn’t a big issue with me,” says Rich Unger, an LSC member at O.A. Thorp on the northwest side. “It’s called ‘live with it.’ I didn’t have air-conditioning in the schools I went to. Listen, it won’t last forever. This is Chicago–the weather varies. If you don’t like it now, wait a day. It will change.”
