Good Ole Heat Days

Heck remember the good old days politicians and pundits love to talk about? You know, playing in the neighborhood without worrying about predators, riding your bike without a helmet, learning ‘rithmetic instead of math, getting paddled for swearing in school, no girls’ athletics, segregated schools, and going to school when it was too hot to breathe.

What good old days?  Society evolves and generally things get better. Still somehow many people think the old times were the best times. They think kids should go to school when it is incredibly hot and humid. They willingly tell you this while sitting in the local air conditioned restaurant, which they drove to in their air conditioned car, from their air conditioned house, or perhaps before they go to the field in their air conditioned tractor, which drives itself.

I recall trying to rationalize why my college degree put me in a classroom of 25-36 with no cooling air and poor circulation, while my brother rode around by himself in an air conditioned tractor. Try to accomplish anything fun or intellectual while packed in an 800 sq ft space (recommended classroom size) with 25-30 sweaty bodies who just came in from playing outside. Make sure you breathe deep as the aroma is memorable.

Add to this, that most school buildings currently in use were built after the 1950’s, because of those darn baby boomers. Many were built around the 1970’s. The essential design criteria was energy conservation, and everyone knows, windows lose heat energy. Therefore “modern” schools, as opposed to good old schools, have few windows and those windows are small and often sealed shut.

Still, the prevailing attitude when these buildings were constructed was  they needed to conserve heat, but air conditioning was an “extra”, not considered important. After all we didn’t have that in the good old days.

Faced with inadequate air circulation, teachers bought window fans to place in the rooms. These didn’t fit in the windows, so they set them on desks. Some teachers received them from the parent teacher organization, but many brought them from home.

Set your thermostat to 90 degrees. Bake bread all morning. If you have a window fan put it on a table in a room in your house and turn it full blast. Then try to have a conversation with your spouse regarding your financial situation or the details of your mortgage. Do this while you have all of your relatives in the room. To make it more realistic use three or four fans. Perhaps you will begin to understand the conditions under which we asked teachers to work in the first few weeks of school.

Since the public wasn’t supportive of air conditioning, we devised the concept of “heat days”. Start school at the regular time, but have “early dismissal”. This would get the students out of the building around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. We needed to keep them there 5 hours to qualify for the minimum allowable school day length. We qualified for a "day", but it wasn't much of a learning experience.

Some school superintendents actually knew it will be hot at the beginning of the school year. They built heat days into the school calendar by dismissing early for the first five days of school.(Some still do this)This was very wise, because it never got hot in September, and certainly was never hot in May or early June.

All of the above happened at Irving School. We also had the advantage of being a two story building. Everyone knows that heat never rises. That is a joke that my former science students better get.

We also had an east facing glass foyer which had no shade. This provided a large warming area by the steps to the second floor. It set up a nice convection current up the stairs. There were no trees on either the east or south classrooms.  The one tree on the south side was on city property and they cut it down. The black asphalt playground was really good at absorbing the early morning solar heat to radiate into those classrooms. The classroom windows did open, but they were small. The only large window areas were the first floor kindergarten rooms and they were on the north side.

I asked for air conditioning, but was denied. I elected to cover the foyer windows with construction paper and  try planting trees. We planted many along the south and east sides, but these failed to help the second floor classrooms. 

The school district did what they could under these circumstances. Large industrial fans were rented and placed in the hallways. Coolers of chilled water were placed in each classroom. Custodians came to school early in the morning to open the schools to the cooler air. A building was cool for an hour in the morning. Then school started and 25-30 little furnaces walked through the door of each class.None of the "cooling" methods worked very well and it was really noisy everywhere.

Now here is the real irony. The current Irving building was built in 1975. This was after other schools had been built with air conditioning. When I asked why Irving was not air conditioned, I was told it would have added too much to the cost of construction. However, the entire air handling system and duct work were sized to push cool air. The small windows were supposed to add light, not air circulation. That is, the school was built to be air conditioned, but wasn’t.

For the 9 years I was at Irving, school almost always started in misery. The teachers were courageous and attempted to teach even though many became physically ill from the heat. They came every day to get their students through the miserable conditions..There wasn’t much I could do as principal. When I left I did something.

With the planning of my fellow assistant superintendent, Robert, and  a supportive superintendent, a 5 year maintenance program was developed to cover all needs. In that plan, air conditioning became a priority in every school. The plan started with creating large cooling spaces in each building. Over a longer period, every classroom space, including the gym, would be air conditioned.


This plan was to take longer than 5 years to complete and was not finished when I retired. Still the groundwork was laid. Then the opportunity to air condition every school was created.The funds became available with the refinancing of building bonds. Soon every space in District 87 was climate controlled.

 Today, no one in the district thinks about the heat at the start of school. It won’t be many years before new teachers hear about the “good old days”, when we started the school year with the roar of fans and the odor of sweltering children.

 It built character; yah, sure it did!

100 missing students

What do you do when they don’t register?

When I first came to Irving School, my predecessor, Carol S., told me that getting students registered was very difficult. She told me that she had hired students to take flyers to homes and apartments announcing the need to register before school started. She had paid her helpers with pizza. The flyers in the doors didn’t help. My buddy, Don, said they show up when the swimming pools close,  but he usually knew who was coming back.

Decisions about the number of teachers needed are based on enrollment. This works nicely at the secondary level. The high school begins student signup in December for the following year. By the end of spring, staff are hired based on these numbers. Students enrolling later either overcrowd classes or are forced to take another course. The same is true at the junior high level.

That is not how it works at the elementary level. When a vacancy in the staff occurs, the frequent answer from the central administration is wait until registration is complete. That is, staff are often hired at the elementary level in August, after the principals return. For those seeking an elementary teaching position, this is the best time to be available. Unfortunately many candidates have stopped looking and taken jobs at the mall.

Registration is actually not delayed until then. The principals do a good job of trying to find students. Kindergarten “Roundup” begins in February after much publicity. By the end of school year, principals have assembled class lists based on teacher recommendations. Staffing is planned as classes move up. Efforts are made to ensure reasonable class sizes at all levels.

Then summer happens. The west side of Bloomington is served by three elementary schools. Generally  these schools serve students from lower income working class families. Such families tend to move when money gets too tight to pay rent, families break up, or other job opportunities occur. The movement is cyclical and happens about every three(3) months. I know this because I tracked it for years.

This movement occurs throughout the school year, but the schools maintain contact as students always enroll somewhere else. It forms a  triangle as they often locate at another school on the west side. In the summer, we lose contact for three(3 )months. Basically we miss an entire cycle of movement. Lost contact creates unknowns as addresses and phone numbers change.(Remember this was before everyone had a cell phone)

Nowhere was this worse than in the Irving area. In August of each year, I was missing about 100 students. They  had failed to respond to registration materials which were mailed home. This was almost 20% of my enrollment. Publicity in public housing, social agencies, and posting at laundromats failed to find the missing students. I made a call to the local radio station and they made an appeal to find the missing 100. It didn't work. I was told people in my neighborhood didn't listen that station.

The solution I was sure would work wasn’t allowed. I would place a keg of beer on the front playground, and offer a free beer to anyone registering a student.😎😎

You might think failure to register was not a problem because the students would eventually show up. However, all principals were trying to make August staffing decisions. On the east side, with more stable families, all students were registered by mid-August. Some classes were usually overcrowded, causing the principals to request more staff. The central administration needed to determine if staff would be transferred or if new hires were to be made. The default was to transfer and save money. Central adminstration required daily counts from every school . 

My counts were always low. The superintendent wanted to transfer some of my staff to help with overcrowding. I would argue that the students would show up once school started. The superintendent started labeling my students as “phantoms.” It became an ongoing joke.

It wasn’t amusing to me. If one of my staff members was transferred, and the “phantoms” showed up, my classes would be overcrowded. I lobbied hard using enrollment trends over multiple years to make my point. I tracked how many students registered every day before school started and how many appeared on the first day or later.

My lobbying paid off every year, except one. The “phantoms” did not show and I was left with small classes and an angry superintendent. Fortunately, he retired the following summer.

As a result of his retirement, a new superintendent was hired. He asked me to be  an assistant superintendent at the central office. I was in charge of deciding the number of staff assigned to each school. Some might call that poetic justice.

August Administrator meeting and the meeting during the meeting

School started around here this week. For principals and other administrators school started at least two weeks before the staff and students appear. The superintendent  usually hosts multiple meeting for these administrators and expects them to prepare to open school in between.

In 1994, Dick, the new superintendent, called for all administrators to meet at the district office. In order to break the ice and show personal interest in his administrators, he asked the administrators to share what they had done that summer. Mostly the stories were about family vacations, and, of course, Don and Robert, and I shared fishing stories (see my blog Principals of Fishing and Boating  http://principalfishing.blogspot.com) 

During the time of sharing, one of us, OB, was silent; this was strange because we knew he spent considerable time in Wisconsin, where he had a cabin on a lake.

While in the restroom during a break, OB excitedly said "Guys, I have a great story from this summer, but I couldn’t tell it in the meeting." He proceeded to tell Don and Robert and me, the following:

OB had been staying in his cabin up in Wisconsin. He spent most of the time fishing, but his wife didn't fish much. However, she did like to visit craft and antique stores. One week-end he put up his fishing poles and decided to take his wife to a flea market. The problem was he didn’t know exactly where it was. (OB has no sense of direction)

They decided to drive around to look for the flea market. OB  stopped at a small carpet store located outside of town. OB went in to ask directions. (This disputes the often repeated meme that men will never ask directions when lost. OB is frequently lost and has much experience asking for directions)

Seeing no one inside the store, he saw an open door and walked into the backroom. As he entered through the unlocked door he started to ask directions. As he looked up, he saw what were apparently two store employees  engaged in wildly passionate (my exaggeration) lovemaking on the desk.  OB, always one to apologize, started stammering and offered apology after apology.  He quickly backed out of the building. 

When he got to the car he got in quickly. His wife asked if he got directions. All he said was "We are on the right road."

I was laughing so hard, I forgot to ask if they ever found the flea market.