CHALKBEAT LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ON AIR CONDITIONING IN NYC CLASSROOMS; SCHOOL FUNDING LAWSUIT APPEAL DELAYED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 29

This Alex Zimmerman piece in Chalkbeat is rather interesting.

Five years ago, former Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed that every New York City public school classroom would be air conditioned by 2022.

Now, after early setbacks and changing deadlines, city officials say they have followed through on that goal, with roughly 19,000 instructional spaces out of nearly 60,000 total receiving air conditioning since 2017.

Did the Department of Education Division of School Facilities people actually get this right?

“This initiative has since completed, and our Division of School Facilities continues to work on upkeep of units to ensure safe and comfortable learning environments for our students and staff,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in a statement.

Further down:

Still, some educators said they are unsure of how reliable the cooling will be, as some have experienced outages or temperatures that vary wildly with little control. The initiative also does not cover every school space where students spend time or even receive instruction. Gyms and other public assembly spaces were not required to be air conditioned under the expansion. About 40% of spaces used for physical education don’t have air conditioning, Lyle said.

And some rooms used for academic instruction will continue to lack air conditioning. Officials said spaces that were not initially designed to be classrooms — but have been “repurposed” as instructional spaces — were not included in the expansion. Lyle did not provide additional details about which specific rooms are not covered by the program. She also did not respond to a question about why 19,000 rooms were outfitted with air conditioning when the city originally claimed that 11,500 classrooms needed it.

Let's be fair: I don't think the former mayor said working air conditioning if you want to be technical.

He also didn't say all of the buildings would be fully air-conditioned. Fully air-conditioned buildings would make sense as it is 2022. There I go nitpicking again.

Please take the Chalkbeat survey for yourself to report on the state of air conditioning in your NYC school. Sorry, it isn't anonymous so the cowards here can crawl right back under their rocks. 

NYC SCHOOL FUNDING LAWSUIT APPEAL WILL NOT BE HEARD UNTIL SEPTEMBER 29

In a not so wonderful development last week, the appeal for the lawsuit from parents and teachers trying to get a do-over vote from the City Council on the New York City public school budgets to restore funding to schools will not be heard until September 29. School begins September 8. This is from Gothamist:

“The mayor is completely responsible for this case dragging on through the courts rather than heeding the demand by City Council to negotiate a budget modification,” said Laura Barbieri, the attorney representing the teachers and parents who sued the city over the cuts. “There is more than enough money in the budget to provide for the children of this city. The mayor’s refusal speaks volumes about how little he cares.”

It looks like the city is running out the clock with the court which is what a City Council source told Gothamist. This looks like a big victory for the DOE bureaucracy that the UFT should be exposing at every opportunity. Even if the teachers-parents win on September 29, it is doubtful that the DOE would reprogram schools in October. If the plaintiffs win, there will probably be enough per session for many of you to need waivers for going over the maximum hours limits.