A group of Ben Franklin Career Center teachers filed a grievance last week against Kanawha County Schools over cooling and heating issues that have been ongoing there for years.
The grievance comes amid increased scrutiny of Kanawha's maintenance needs and heating, ventilation and air conditioning issues. On the Friday of the first week of school, the district closed seven schools, including four of the county's eight public high schools, due to AC and power failures, meaning about one in 10 Kanawha public schools were closed that day.
Four of the county's schools were closed the following Monday due to similar issues, and Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring has said the county has old AC systems and not enough money to replace them or make major upgrades.
Julie Wiles said she led the effort to file the grievance and has about 14 other Ben Franklin teachers - about half the school's teachers - on board. All of the grieving educators are American Federation of Teachers union members.
She said the problems have been ongoing for all seven years she's been at the Dunbar school for vocational students.
Principal Paula Potter, who is not one of the grieving employees, said she's been at the school six years and the issues have been continuing at least that long. She said there are about 700 students in the school throughout each day, though some only attend during certain times of the day.
Both women said about half the building effectively doesn't have cooling or heating. Potter said that this school year Ben Franklin has closed for two days due to heat problems, and new mold issues required the school to keep two classrooms closed after classes began so the rooms could be cleaned.
Potter said a hospital bed mattress that health occupation students could have trained with had to be thrown out due to mold, as did a teacher's desk chair, though she didn't know the amount of monetary damages Wednesday. She said more mold was found this week behind a cabinet and atop a chair, and the school system was planning to send someone in Thursday to do more air quality tests.
Wiles said at least five other Ben Franklin employees have told her they've been sick and have been to the doctor due to issues that seem to stem from heat, lack of fresh air or possibly mold. She said she's personally suffered symptoms from heat exhaustion, including headaches, dizziness and daily body aches.
"When people start getting sick and having to go to the doctor, and it being a particularly hot summer, and just getting the runaround over and over and over and I see the teachers around me suffering, I just think something has to be done," Wiles said. "... We'd just like to see the long-term fix happen, after so many years of the constant problems."
Terry Hollandsworth, the district's maintenance director, declined comment. Jim Withrow, Kanawha County Schools general counsel, to whom Hollandsworth deferred comment, said Tuesday he wasn't aware until recently that there was an issue at Ben Franklin, and didn't know how long it had been occurring.
"I'm really not in the position to tell you very much about the merits of their complaint," Withrow said.
He said grievance or not, the school system doesn't want people working in poor conditions.
"I mean my air conditioner has been out for a while, and I've been out of my office for a week at least," said Withrow, who's currently working out of another area in the school system's central office in Charleston. He said the school system will hopefully come to a "mutually satisfactory resolution" with the grieving workers.
Wiles, a computer-aided drafting teacher, estimated that her school has issued about 50 work requests per year, but the heating and cooling issues still haven't been permanently fixed. When asked whether the district has explained to her its failure to fix the issues over the years, Wiles said she's only been told a part is on order.
"If they've installed the part, the part didn't work for very long," she said.
Potter, who said Duerring told her Tuesday that they were trying to bring in portable cooling units for some rooms by the end of the week, said the school system has been quick in making things safe for employees and students, and though she agrees problems have persisted, maintenance workers have at least responded to requests for help.
"I don't want to make it look like someone's not doing their job because that's not the case," Potter said. "But our teachers are frustrated because it's hard to work in those conditions, too ... Every day people come to me about heat. There's not a day that we aren't talking about the heat and in the winter that we're not talking about it being cold."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.