At least six San Antonio ISD campuses experienced problems with their heating systems as a cold front settled over South Texas this week, a district official confirmed.
HVAC systems at Highlands, Fox Tech and Burbank high schools were unable to adequately warm those campuses Tuesday, according to SAISD spokesperson Lorraine Pulido. Meanwhile, the systems at Graebner, Washington and Carvajal elementary schools also experienced issues.
Temperatures inside at least one classroom at Highlands hovered in the low 50s Tuesday before the district could repair a boiler on the campus, as reported by the Current.
The problems at five of the campuses were either fixed or mitigated as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, Pulido said. Even so, technicians were still at Carvajal Elementary at press time Wednesday afternoon to fix a secondary issue with the school’s heating system, according to the district.
“We continue to monitor campuses at all times,” Pulido said in an emailed statement. “Like other large school districts, and considering the age and condition of our buildings and the number of systems we operate, it is customary for us to provide maintenance and/or repairs at multiple sites through the district on a daily basis.”
SAISD responded to 29 “high-priority” maintenance issues Tuesday, about double the amount of technical problems it responds to on any given day, according to Pulido.
The array of heating issues at SAISD schools comes less than a day after Superintendent Jaimie Aquino assured concerned parents that the district was prepared for winter weather.
“The operations team has been working since the summer to ensure we are ready for cold weather,” Aquino said in a Monday email to parents. “All boilers have been serviced, and staff have been working over the break to ensure we are positioned well for the upcoming winter weather.”
Last January, SAISD was forced to close all of its campuses for two days over what Aquino described as “significant heating system failures.”
A 38-page report released last May attributed the HVAC failures to 20 years of mismanagement and inadequate upkeep.
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This article appears in Jan 8-21, 2025.