GREENSBORO, N.C. — Guilford County Schools, the Guilford County Association of Educators, and the Guilford County Commissioners all agree that kids should have warm classrooms when it's cold. They just don't agree on the root of the problem, operations or a lack of funding.
A Guilford County Schools (GCS) spokesperson says 21 buildings across the district had heating issues this week. About 16 have been fixed so far. They say GCS plans for problems like this. They say they move students to other classrooms and sometimes outside heaters are even brought in.
Todd Warren is the president of the Guilford County Association of Educators.
He says the ongoing AC and heating problems boil down to money or lack thereof. "Every year the budget request is not met," he says. GCS says they asked for $12 Million dollars to upgrade facilities and only half of that was approved.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners approves the school budget every year. Commissioner Justin Conrad says the school heating failures this week have nothing to do with the budget. Conrad says it boils down not turning on the boilers in time.
"I was told that the system was not cut on until Monday and it takes a couple of days for that system to be adequately heating the school," says Conrad. His daughter attends Grimsley High School.
School board members told Conrad the boilers should have been turned on last week, in preparation for this week's temperature drop.
So board members are calling this an operational issue and not a funding issue.
"I just think the school system cut it awfully short here. This is a routine thing. This is not something that you can say funding caused this. I'll push back on that"
Warren says the boilers taking too long to heat up still circles back to funding.
"I think that's just a reflection of the aging infrastructure many of these systems are 40, 50, 60 years old yeah they're not able to keep up with the needs they're too old they need to be replaced."
In a facilities study conducted last year, it was revealed that GCS has about $800 million dollars in unmet maintenance needs.
In the midst of all of this Guilford County Schools released the following statement on the recent heating issues:
“Rapid temperature changes, record cold and aging systems all contributed to the heating issues we experienced this week.”
We reached out to Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools and Alamance Burlington School System to see if they're dealing with any heating issues. They both said they currently aren't having any problems.