‘Sweatbox’ conditions close aging Detroit schools a third day as board member seeks help

Thousands of Detroit parents were awakened Thursday morning to the news that district schools would be closing early again for the third consecutive day.

With temperatures predicted to soar into the high 80s, school officials decided to close the 106 buildings—most lacking air-conditioning—of Detroit’s main district three hours early before the temperatures hit a high of 87 degrees.

The early school closures were the latest fallout for a district with many aging buildings that haven’t been well maintained in recent years. The district let students in air-conditioned buildings leave early so siblings who attend different schools could be dismissed together. Schools will open Friday, when the high is expected to reach 80 degrees.

“Not only do approximately 61 of our buildings not have air conditioning but windows do not open in many of the classrooms. This creates ‘sweatbox’ conditions in many schools and classrooms,” district spokeswoman Chrystal Wilson said in a statement.

“The decision has been well received by our staff because previously their voice was not heard” when the state ran the district, Wilson added.

Nevertheless, parent Gina Reichert felt frustrated as she  picked up her 8-year-old daughter, Eva, early from the Davison Elementary-Middle School for the third day in a row.

Gina Reichert and daughter, Eva (Kimberly Hayes Taylor)

“We want the kids to be safe, and you don’t want them sitting in the building sweating,” the independent artist said after the 11:40 a.m., dismissal. “But it’s not even June yet. What should we expect for the rest of the year? The district needs to invest in these buildings.”

Tashia Madden called the early dismissal an inconvenience, but said she realizes the district “barely has any money.” Her daughter, third grader Lataliah, also had some thoughts about it.

“When you get out early, your education is cut short,” she said.

The early closing not only affected parents’ schedules, it also impacted students’.

As he waited for a bus on Ryan Road at East Seven Mile Road outside Pershing High School after his noon dismissal, 16-year-old Keshawn Holton, a 10th grader at the school, said he wasn’t happy because the early closure interfered with his schoolwork.

“I feel like it’s not good logic to let school out,” said the aspiring firefighter. “OK. It’s hot, but it’s hot everywhere. What do they do in places like Birmingham, Alabama? I’ve got work I’m missing, and I can’t do it.”

Keshawn Holton (Kimberly Hayes Taylor)

He said he had an online chemistry assignment he needed to complete, and planned to do the work at school because he lacks home internet access. “On top of that, we can’t go on any field trips,” he said.

But even an air-conditioned building, Cass Technical High School, has been closed all week, and will remain closed Friday because of a malfunctioning cooling system.

“The reason for the school closures is due to [having] only one of five chillers operating to cool the school building,” Wilson said. “Required repairs are extensive but temporary chillers are being installed in the meantime to cool the building by Monday.”

The district is reviewing its facility needs, Wilson said.

Most of the area’s other districts and schools remained open, with a few exceptions.

The district could have difficulty upgrading its buildings because of a quirk in state law that created the new Detroit Public Schools Community District. The new district is free from most of the debt that imperiled its predecessor, the Detroit Public Schools, but the new district is barred from borrowing money to pay for capital improvements.

That’s likely why district school board member Sonya Mays put out a call for help on Mackinac Island where the state’s business and political leaders were gathered for the Mackinac Policy Conference, Michigan’s largest annual political event traditionally held the week after Memorial Day.

“We have several decades of poorly maintained buildings, deferred maintenance and tons of vacant buildings for which there is no clear purpose,” Mays told a well-heeled audience assembled at Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel.

“I don’t know that I can overstate how much of a hurdle that has become in consistently educating and providing a safe environment for our students.”

Mays, who heads Develop Detroit, a nonprofit real estate development agency, said helping the district take care of its properties would be the best way for business leaders to offer support. She cited this week’s early dismissals as evidence that the district needs help.

“Just think about the disruption that that causes, and you multiply it out across a whole school system,” she said.

The district’s early dismissals fall on the heels of a new study released Monday that shows warm classrooms hamper student learning. The research by the National Bureau of Economic Research also suggests that air conditioning, still missing in many schools, is a worthwhile investment.

Under Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s year-old administration, the Detroit district has been dealing with crumbling buildings, and malfunctioning heating and cooling systems, even as it has focused on improving instruction and test scores. Earlier this year, a school had to be shuttered after a leaking roof led to dangerous mold growth.

Administrators have had to be “superior managers of property and buildings in an environment that’s not like any other across the country. It’s not their core competency,” Mays said.

She pleaded for help from business and political leaders.

Mayor Mike Duggan, who was on the same panel with Mays and Vitti, recalled the business community lining up to help Detroit schools after a similar plea at the 1999 Mackinac conference. Eager to help, he said, they forged robust partnerships. But most of that receded after the district spiraled downward in later years.

Mays is seeking new partnerships to help the district.

“It’s an area where the broader community could really step up and collaborate and help solve some of the problems we have with our buildings.”