Cost Cutting Move Cuts Heat At Oakland Middle School

Its been a very cold school week for students at Frick Middle School. It seems an attempt to save money when the students are out of school for the Thanksgiving holiday ended up causing for some very chilly days in the classrooms.

Since Monday, the campus has been without heat.

8th grader Mariah Payne said its been very cold. 12-year-old Diamond Jones agreed: "I just bundle up a little and just shiver."

12-year-old 7th grader Zaria Woods said the cold made it difficult to focus.

"I can't feel my hands," said Woods. "I can't think straight."

When the students arrived at school Wednesday morning, it was a bone chilling 40 degrees.

Tareena Woods, a 13-year-old 8th grader, said she brought up the problems with the teachers.

"We asked our teachers if we could turn on the heaters and they say that they don't control it, the district does," said Woods. "But what can help is that we bring coats and stuff like scarves and gloves."

The district does control the heat at Frick Middle School through a centrally operated system, but that's not the issue. The problem lies in the district's decision to shutdown the heating system during the Thanksgiving holiday to save money

District spokesman Troy Flint said one of the problems the district faced was the length of time it takes to reheat a whole school after turning off the heaters at some campuses.

"When you restart the equipment after the break, it's not operating effectively," said Flint.

After three days of cold classrooms, some parents questioned the district's holiday shutdown. They said if there was a history of the older heating systems such as the one at Frick not firing up again, then those systems shouldn't have been turned off at all.

"I think they can try to find another way to try to save money rather than cutting the heat," said Frick Middle School parent Neshima Ford.

Flint conceded there was a problem.

"Obviously the system is not working as it should. It needs revision and that's something we're discussing," said Flint. "Over Christmas we'll be handling it differently. We don't expect a repeat of this."

The school district apologized and said all of its maintenance personnel trained on the heating systems were working to fix the problem. Officials hoped to have the heat restored by 11 a.m. Thursday morning.