Air-conditioning issues, which have plagued Kanawha County schools for years, closed at least three of the system's schools Friday - including a second consecutive day at a school where teachers have filed a grievance over years of continuing AC problems.
Principal Paula Potter said Dunbar's Ben Franklin Career and Technical Education Center, where teachers filed the grievance against the public school system last week, was shuttered all day Friday, after it closed around 10:15 a.m. Thursday.
The school system's automated messaging system didn't announce Thursday's closure, but it did announce Friday's, alongside the early dismissals of St. Albans and Riverside high schools, both of which let students out around noon.
On Aug. 12 - the fifth day of classes for most Kanawha schools - the county closed seven schools, including four of its eight public high schools, because of AC and power failures, meaning about one in 10 Kanawha public schools were closed that day.
Four schools were closed Aug. 15 for similar issues. Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring has said the county has old AC systems and not enough money to replace them or make major upgrades.
Potter, who is not one of the employees who filed the grievance, said Duerring decided to close Ben Franklin early Thursday because of the heat, and decided to keep it closed Friday because the heat in the morning was similar to what it was at 10:15 a.m. Thursday.
"There are people here working on the air, so we hope to have things resolved by Monday," Potter said Friday morning. "It's just been unusually hot."
She said students who attend her vocational school in the afternoon have now missed four days, so far, because of AC problems, while the students who attend in the mornings have missed one.
"Our instructors are doing a really good job, because we have the iPad initiative," she said when asked how the issues were impacting instruction. "They are sending assignments out on the iPads, though they can't do the shop work."
With the school system's distribution of tablet computers to students and teachers through its Learning 20/20 initiative, Kanawha's middle and high schools have gone "one-to-one" - there's at least one computer per student. Last fall, the county's elementary schools had about one computer for every four students.
Potter said her school's own heating, ventilation and AC instructors and students aren't allowed to work on the school's HVAC system.
Terry Hollandsworth, the school system's maintenance director, said occupational-safety regulations ban people who aren't at least 18 from working on air conditioners. He added that working on rooftop units presents more hazards, including high voltage, than working in a controlled classroom setting. He said his department did hire a Ben Franklin graduate this year.
Hollandsworth said a power outage contributed to continuing problems with the AC system at Ben Franklin.
When asked about the years of issues there, he said the rooftop AC units at the school are 20 years old.
When asked if replacing the school's AC system is the only thing that would finally solve the problems there, Hollandsworth said: "Replacing those units is one of the options that we're looking at, yes. That's the answer I can give you."
Hollandsworth said the school system has been trying for weeks to fix AC issues at St. Albans High. He said that, initially, one of the six compressors in the two chillers at the school went down. While workers were trying to fix that, a second compressor locked up, and a third one wouldn't keep running at full capacity.
"We still have contractors working on it," he said.
He said the school system will have to purchase a new compressor, possibly two, but said it's possible students will be able to return to the building Monday - if it's cool enough.
He said he was working with a company to possibly bring in a tractor-trailer with a chiller on it to serve the school.
He said he didn't know exactly what caused a rooftop unit to shut down at Riverside High but that the unit is fixed now.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.