Air conditioning issues force Fresno school to send students home amid heat wave
A school in Fresno Unified sent students home early Tuesday due to the dangerous combination of the current heat wave and air-conditioning failures.
Starr Elementary School, located in northwest Fresno, had started an early release process because of A/C failures, said district spokesperson Nikki Henry in an email to The Bee’s Education Lab on Tuesday afternoon.
The move comes amid reassurances from FUSD leaders — and several other Fresno-area districts — that they were prepared for the Labor Day heat wave.
Henry said one other FUSD school changed to early dismissals Tuesday due to the excessive heat. Addicott Elementary School announced early dismissals Sept. 2 and 6 in a message to parents last week. The school serves students with severe disabilities. Officials said they made the decision out of an abundance of caution regarding “heat on school buses for their medically fragile students,” Henry said in an email to the Ed Lab on Friday.
Henry said that FUSD principals would communicate directly with families if a campus chooses to release students early due to HVAC issues.
Fresno is facing potentially record-setting, triple-digit heat through at least Wednesday.
Clovis Unified has not sent students home early Tuesday, district spokesperson Kelly Avants said in an email to the Ed Lab.
“Our team has worked on a few isolated classroom issues that have been repaired and otherwise everything is working as expected,” Avants said. “On hot days it’s harder for the air-conditioning to keep up, so I’m sure rooms are one or 2 degrees warmer than normal but that is as expected when it’s as hot as it is.”
School districts as far away as Philadelphia — and as close as the San Fernando Valley — sent students home early and canceled football games due to extreme heat around Labor Day weekend. Most Fresno-area schools stayed open but took precautions.
This story was originally published September 6, 2022 at 1:08 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the location of Starr Elementary School. The school is located in northwest Fresno.
