DPS = Denver Public Saunas: Schools' Heat Issues Boil Over

Mid-afternoon on September 6, Denver Public Schools released a list of 31 schools that would be either shut down early or closed entirely today and tomorrow, September 7 and 8, because they don't have air-conditioning and temperatures approaching triple digits are predicted. Since then, two more schools — South High School and Brown International Academy — have been added to the rundown, bringing the total to 33, or around 16 percent of the 207 schools in the DPS system, which serves around 90,000 students.

While the district has been chipping away at the challenge of schools without air-conditioning in recent years, the problem is a long way from being resolved...and this week's heat is a record-breaker.

According to the National Weather Service, the September 6 high of 98 degrees was an all-time high for the date, and while today's mark is expected to top out at 97 degrees, the potential exists for temperatures over 100 — and should that happen, it will be the latest day for such a scorcher in Denver weather history.

Back in 2018, Westword reported the lack of air-conditioning at many DPS schools during a nearly week-long stretch of temps at or above 90 degrees in mid-September. At the time, nearly a third of all DPS schools didn't have central air-conditioning, and even those that did could get way too warm in part because of the process in place at the time. Assorted teachers told Westword that employees weren't allowed to simply adjust the A/C if the classrooms got uncomfortable, because cooling and heating were controlled by personnel at district headquarters.

This approach led to some sticky situations. At one school, a staffer guided a DPS administrative type from classroom to classroom to prove that the temperature in each was at or above 95 degrees. In that case, technicians found a mechanical complication that took the better part of two days to address.

At another school without central air, an educator pointed out that classrooms on upper floors could get so sweltering that educators commonly kept all the windows closed and the blinds lowered in an effort to prevent the spaces from being super-heated. When that didn't work, they turned on box fans, but those devices merely circulated the steamy air and created a distracting noise that teachers had to project over in an attempt to reach students that the heat was rapidly putting to sleep. "How can we expect them to learn when they're melting?" one teacher asked.

In September 2018, DPS boasted 248 facilities, and 78 of them didn't have central air conditioning. But as a district representative noted, students in those schools weren't left to broil; a bond program had allowed for the installation of classroom-level cooling units in select spaces that got especially hot.
The next year, the number of schools without air-conditioning was down to 55, the district maintains — and in 2020, Denver voters approved a bond and mill levy that included cash to put A/C in 24 of them. The district reveals that air-conditioning was installed at six schools in 2021, and while nine more were supposed to be brought up to that standard over the summer, supply-chain issues left eight of the jobs incomplete. This work is supposed to be finished in the fall, and nine additional schools are earmarked for air-conditioning during the summer of 2023.

Such efforts will still leave dozens of DPS schools without air-conditioning, raising the possibility of more late-summer school-schedule disruptions in the years to come.

Here are the schools designated for early release or closure on September 7 and 8:

Early release

Asbury Elementary
Cory Elementary
Cowell Elementary
Park Hill Elementary
Skinner Middle School
Stedman Elementary
University Park Elementary
Ellis Elementary
Bradley Elementary
Sabin World School
Thomas Jefferson High School
Carson Elementary
Denison Montessori
Steele Elementary
Bryant Webster Dual Language
McMeen Elementary
Lake Middle School
Polaris Elementary
Traylor Academy
Manual High School
Math and Science Leadership Academy - Rishel
Goldrick Elementary
Doull Elementary
Denver Montessori, only Thursday
Whittier ECE-8
George Washington High School
West Middle School
West High School
South High School
Brown International Academy

Closure

Barrett Elementary
Columbine Elementary
Knapp Elementary