Wakefield High School, among several other schools in the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), faces frustration over failing school heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units. Schools such as Lake Myra Elementary, Moore Square Middle, Green Hope Elementary and Wakefield Middle and High are just some of the schools that have had to deal with delays and early releases in the school day due to malfunctioning HVAC systems. Teachers and students voice their concerns over the problems, speaking on how it affects the classroom and the environment around them. 

With there being 199 schools in WCPSS, maintenance problems are bound to occur. One of the primary reasons for the recurring HVAC issues across Wake County Schools stems from the outdated condition of HVAC systems and their chillers: cooling systems that are designed to remove heat from water in the HVAC, then circulate the chilled water through a building or facility to absorb the heat. Malik Bazzell is the principal of Wakefield High School and has seen first-hand the problems Wakefield High has been experiencing. 

“We’ve been having HVAC problems since I’ve been here,” Bazzell said. “Some of it has been how the air flows in the building where it’s trying to get adjusted to where it’s balanced; With the weather being hotter, the HVAC system has to work harder, and being old has caused more malfunctions.”

The impact of these failures is tangible to many, with students reporting discomfort in the classrooms due to rising temperatures. Keya Chaddah, a senior, is no stranger to Wakefield High School’s up and down temperatures. 

“An administrator came around and was checking temperatures [in classrooms] and found it was 80 degrees in Mrs. Furches’ classroom,” Chaddah said.

Chaddah found that the classroom environment due to the high temperatures was made intolerable, due to the high temperatures

“It was an uncomfortable classroom to sit in,” Chaddah said. “It was an unproductive environment for students and difficult to focus.”

From the perspective of classroom teachers, the issues have been just as disruptive. Caleb Roderick is an English teacher at Wakefield to various grades. His classroom is one of several that has been dealing with AC malfunctions. 

“All of my classes sometimes have to be relocated, which has been a little chaotic,” Roderick said. “I would say that on the days where it starts to get hot, there is a loss of focus which can become an issue [with] having to repeat certain things; it puts me in a worse mood.”

Rising temperatures haven’t been the only disruption in the classroom. With battling high summer temperatures from the outside to create a balanced atmosphere in the school, HVAC systems have had difficulty keeping up with it all, causing Wakefield High School and several others to dismiss early. 

“Back to when we released early, the days after that have been a little bit more chaotic as well,” Roderick said. “I think having an unexpected break makes [the learning environment] a little worse.”

While the solution may appear to be simple, fixing HVAC systems across all Wake County Public Schools proves to be difficult. WCPSS estimates that there are 638 million dollars worth of unfunded projects with HVAC units being the most expensive of all. Chief of Facilities and Operations for WCPSS, Mark Strickland, has been working on systems across all 199 schools in Wake County. With the growing number of schools needing updated HVAC systems and other equipment, the challenge of generating sufficient funds continues to escalate. 

“A majority of our [systems] are old; We identified some 130 million in HVAC equipment that needs work,” Strickland said. “That comes from years and years of not funding things the way we should have.”

However, finding the staff to send out emergency work orders to is challenging due to ongoing labor shortages within the school system.

“We have essentially the same staff in maintenance and operations as we had in 2008,” Strickland said. “Consequently, we have to depend on outside vendors and without having our qualified staff in-house who we can send out at a moment’s notice, we have to rely on these vendors to see if they can accommodate us on any given day.”

When it comes to fixing the HVAC systems, the chillers are the most tedious part. Strickland states that a plan is set in place; however, without the right funding, the demands of what needs to be done cannot be met. 

“I see for all of us, the saying is ‘You can only spend a dollar at one time,’” Strickland said. “We have to prioritize what is important to us as a district.”