A group of parents with children at Dorchester’s Mather Elementary School have delivered a 160-signature petition to Boston Public School officials calling for urgent steps to cool the 121-year-old school building, which lacks air conditioning. The push comes after a school year that saw heat conditions inside classrooms that parents called unsafe and unfair to both pupils and staff.
“In June, during normal school operating hours, we became aware that some of the classrooms were reaching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Ben Engle, a parent of two daughters at the Mather. “There are monitoring systems that we can look at online. Also, kids are coming home sweaty, red in the face, empty water bottles, complaining of the heat, complaining they can’t focus, they can’t stay awake. It’s hard to learn in the heat.”
Engel, who chairs the Mather’s Parent Council, gathered the signatures on the petition from parents, guardians, family members, and community supporters in fewer than five school days.
In a July 17 letter to Superintendent Mary Skipper, the Boston School Committee, Mayor Wu, and other elected leaders, the parents called for swift action to set a timeline for a permanent air conditioning plan.
“These conditions are not conducive to learning and raise serious concerns regarding student health, staff well-being, and Boston Public Schools’ responsibility to provide safe, healthy learning environments for all students and educators,” the letter reads.
“Boston Public Schools has responded to past formal requests to mitigate this health and safety risk with fans and popsicles. These are not acceptable solutions, are not substitutes for air-conditioned classrooms, and do nothing to eliminate the unsafe classroom temperatures experienced by Mather students and staff. The long-term solution to extreme classroom heat is the installation of permanent cooling infrastructure, and we urge district leaders to treat this issue with the urgency it deserves.”
Brian Forde Jr., BPS’s chief operating officer, responded to the petition in a letter that explained that the school building’s existing electrical system “does not currently have the capacity to support a building-wide air conditioning system.”
Forde said that upgrades to the building would “likely trigger additional building code requirements, including life safety (NFPA), accessibility (ADA), and other regulatory improvements. As a result, what may appear to be a straightforward HVAC project becomes a much larger capital modernization effort requiring significant planning, funding, and coordination.”
The Mather School on Parish Street, the latest in a line of schools near its site that extends back close to 400 years, was built in 1905. It lays claim to the title “oldest public school in America,” since Dorchester colonists established a school near the site in 1639 that was financed collectively by the town’s settlers.
According to the city of Boston website, the school is currently due to be updated in an “envelope” project, budgeted at $3.1 million, to focus on “corrective works that include masonry work, window replacements, and other site work.” The project description does not include any funds for HVAC or electrical upgrades, according to the contract advertised on the city website.
Engle said that the school district’s letter was “a canned response” that has been used before to kick the problem down the road. Engle, who also serves on the Mather School’s site committee, says the school’s leadership is “very supportive of what we are doing.”
“In the past, any sort of noise or request that parents or administration made was very quickly shot down by BPS with, ‘Oh, we would love to give you air conditioning, but the electrical infrastructure can’t handle it.’ To which the entire impetus of our petition. We get it. We get that it’s a challenge, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
In response to a Reporter inquiry this week, a BPS spokesperson said Mather School leaders “took appropriate action during last month’s heat to ensure that students were not learning inside classrooms that registered high temperatures, relocating students and staff to classrooms with lower temperatures.”
Extra fans, water and three “designated cool down spaces” inside the school were also used, the spokesperson said, adding: “We remain committed to identifying feasible infrastructure solutions that will improve the learning environment while ensuing any investments are safe, sustainable, and compliant with applicable building codes.”
Meanwhile, Boston City Councillor Enrique Pepén has moved to schedule a hearing on the issue.
“Extreme temperatures like those recorded at the Mather and schools in my district can lead to serious, life-altering health concerns,” Pepén said in a statement. “It is why I called for a hearing to discuss the status of renovating HVAC systems across BPS and plan to hold it before the academic year. Our school buildings must be comfortable learning environments, so I commend the Mather community in their advocacy for permanent air conditioning.”
Engle hopes to see other leaders, including Superintendent Skipper and Mayor Wu, respond too.
“I’m hoping that Boston Public Schools prepare to take this much more seriously than they’ve already demonstrated. Our community is beautiful, diverse, and we’re all aligned behind this cause. We’re taking it very seriously…We’re motivated, and we are organized.”
