It's 7:00 am...

...and the AC in my classroom just came on.

Since this is Fairfield, the wind is already gusting outside of my classroom. And it's not blowing warm air, which could almost justify having the AC on at 7:00 am. No, it's only about 60 degrees outside.

Apparently, ancient buildings combined with a Stalin-esque district that doesn't think teachers are capable of maintaining the temperature of their own classrooms have combined forces. The district controls the temperature of all the classrooms in my building, and to make it less work for them they have the thermostats on a timer. Until November, the AC will come on at 7:00 am and will turn off at 3:30 pm, no matter the temperature. From November to February we get heat (theoretically). And then again from February until June, it's AC all effing day long.

But I can't blame the district for never adjusting the thermostat schedule because it actually doesn't even matter. Each classroom's vents are broken in their own special way. For instance, while my classroom has an overactive AC, my classroom's vents don't have any heat. So, when the district turns on the heat, we get the cold air from outside blowing in the classroom. The classrooms behind and next to mine, however, don't have a functioning AC. So when the AC is on, they get the nice warm air from outside. In winter, their classrooms are almost unbearably hot.

So when I had my students start keeping coats in my classroom last September, I thought that maybe I should email the district and ask if they could adjust the thermostat, seeing as how having students wear coats in class when it's a beautiful 70 degrees outside is just a little bit of a waste. After a month, the district sent maintenance to my classroom. He accessed the building's thermostat and checked the temperature to which the building was set, walked into my classroom and told me that he didn't know what I was talking about since the building was set to be 69 degrees. After two months of trying to explain that maybe it's not the thermostat but something with the room, I was told that they figured out that the vents to my room were broken, but wouldn't be fixed. Too expensive to fix them. So I kept the windows open and the doors opening, hoping that some of the cold classroom air would escape and allow the comfortable outside air to enter, which was quickly followed by an all-staff email from admin reminding teachers to keep the classroom doors and windows closed, so that the AC wasn't wasted.

It's ok, I'm prepared this year. I added a sentence to my syllabi telling students to bring warm clothes to class, and have purchased myself a fancy little space heater. But what a waste, eh? It seems ludicrous to waste all of this money and resources on AC for this building, while N's building doesn't even have an AC system and won't install one, as it will take millions of dollars to do so. So while his students are melting in a 98 degree classroom next month, mine will be piling on the layers and gathering by the space heater. And yet this waste continues, year after year after year. I just don't think this would fly in the private sector. Hell, even when I worked for the state temperature issues were always handled efficiently. People would flat out refuse to work if the room got too warm or too cold for their taste.

Not to say that's the way to go, it would just be nice to be considered professional and mature enough to control the temperature of my own classroom.