The Front Page article of our Local Newspaper today was about Bowie Schools with No Heat this winter. You can read it here:
“Cold Classrooms a Hot issue in Bowie”
“Parents Steamed by Cold Classrooms Bowie Blade-News Thursday Jan 12, 2017
Cold Classrooms have some Bowie parents fired up. About 50 of them gathered at Whitehall Elementary last week to exchange information about the problem and try to figure out how to solve it.”
Parents are up in Arms in Bowie Maryland because County Educators can’t keep the heat on in the Public Schools.
“Representatives of parent-teacher organizations from Whitehall Elementary, Samuel Ogle Middle School and Bowie High School were among those in attendance.”
3 schools in my neighborhood.
“Katie Moran, the president of the Whitehall Parent-Teacher Association, organized last week’s meeting after she said county education officials seemed unresponsive to her concerns about temperatures inside some classrooms. “It started when kids were reporting to their parents that they were having to wear their coats in the classroom and parents were having to keep their kids home more often because they were having colds and things like that,” she said.”
No heat in the school, kids get sick, parents complain, unresponsive bureaucrats. Got it.
“After repeated requests from Moran and others, the county was able to provide space heaters in classrooms, which brought temperatures up to the low 60’s- 68 degrees is considered standard. One parent reported a classroom temperature reading at Samuel Ogle of 49 degrees one morning, she said.”
Amazing.
“The heat (at Whitehall) still isn’t working and there’s been no kind of expectation created for when the heat will be working,” she said.”
“According to Sam Stefanelli, Director of Building Services for Prince George’s County Public Schools, the problem is that the county doesn’t have to money to replace all the failing heat systems at its schools. So, his department must do the best it can to provide temporary fixes. “Priorities are also an issue”, he said at the meeting with parents.”
“When I have 20 schools that don’t see heat at all, you’re not going to see my mechanics at places where the temperature problems are less severe”, he said. “It’s not that they’re not coming here. But they have to get those (non-working) systems up first. Then they’re working their way to other systems.”
“It’s gotten to the point where there’s so many of them, we’re not able to keep up on a daily basis. So, we’re bringing in contractors to try to supplement our work force.”
“According to school system documents, there were more than 800 open work orders for heat-related problems inside the county’s 230 school buildings as of last week. Ten of those work orders involved problems at Bowie High School.”
The Director of Building Services says there’s no money to fix everything. What does our District Delegate say?
“The key to fixing the problem is to lobby elected officials for more money from the state for county schools.” Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith urged parents at the meeting to email elected officials at the county and state level.”
“This is a huge problem – much bigger than any of us suspected,” Valentino-Smith told those at the meeting. “Bowie has a problem, the county has a problem. We’ve got the big picture now.”
They understand the problem, it’s huge, it’s much bigger than they expected. They know how to solve it. Mo money, Mo money, Mo money. Oh yeah, and fire off those emails. That will get the ball rolling. These people are serious.
Here’s the county’s school budget:
Fancy.
So, we have a 2 Billion dollar Education Budget and no money to fix the heaters. We’re told it’s because of a lack of funding. We’re told it’s worse in other schools in the county. Triage has been performed on the schools, and maintenance prioritized. Right. Back to the article.
“Moran and Eckenrode say they need to channel the parental frustration into action and will try to formulate a strategy to convince officials to make necessary changes in the school budget and policy.
“I think tonight we saw a show of real frustration, a real boiling point, where people are saying ‘I can’t take this any more,’ ” Eckenrode said. “Parents need to take that passion and that fire to the governor, to (County Council member) Todd Turner and it needs to be relentless. You can’t let up.”
Legislators and Bureaucrats are going to harness the power of the people,( all 50 of them) to get this problem permanently resolved. Parents must do a better job of policing legislators and bureaucrats through email. Good luck on both counts.
Conclusion.
This is just one other issue in the litany that should make the solution self evident to parents. The Public School System is incorrigible. Pull your kids out of the school and take responsibility for their safety and education. Adjust your priorities.
The follow up post to this is here.