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Last Updated 2/7/07

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CUSD: Lack of Personnel, Century-old Facilities Led to Absence of Heat at Local High School
As of last week, heat restored to most classroooms

By Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer

The school district says a local high school’s heating system was out of order mainly due to lack of regular repairs.

Last month, record low temperatures in addition to broken windows had students and staff shivering and teachers taking classes outside to warm up in the sun, according to parents who recently filed a formal complaint with the district.

A shortness of district repair personnel or an in-house team to handle HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) maintenance is blamed for the lapse in heat, said district officials. Plus, with Compton High School’s facilities being so old, the school is more susceptible to having broken, run-down and worn-out equipment, they said.

“We are aware of the situation and understand the parents’ concerns. We are doing what we can as fast as we can to get heat in all the classrooms,” said Superintendent Jesse L. Gonzales Ph.D. early last week. “One of the reasons for the delay is a lack of staffing that has prevented us from remedying the problem.”

The Compton Unified School District (CUSD) hurriedly began addressing the busted heating system and broken windows after the complaint was filed and the ACLU of Southern California (ACLU/SC) got involved. It has 30 working days from the date the complaint was filed to remediate the issues cited.

“CUSD has been working on the heating situation by hiring general and subcontractors, who have already been on campus to make necessary repairs,” said CUSD Communications Coordinator Sunny Yu early last week. Asked how long Compton High has been without heat, officials couldn’t provide an answer.

“We cannot determine how long there has been no heat at Compton High School because it has been an ongoing, but intermittent problem,” continued Yu. “With approximately 5,000 classrooms within the district, we’re bound to occasionally run into problems with heating and air-conditioning. It’s not that the entire school has no heat; the heat comes and goes and there are approximately 20 rooms that are having this problem.”

Because Compton’s 33 schools are considered low-performing, said the ACLU/SC’s Teresa VirgenTorres, they fall under the jurisdiction of a recent civil rights case settlement that requires the district to provide heat.

The formal complaint cites Williams v. California, which holds school districts accountable for the quality of learning conditions for low- and moderate-income students of color throughout California. The 2004 settlement raised the bar for measuring whether schools have the basic conditions students need to learn including textbooks, well-trained teachers and clean and safe school facilities.

The district did not say how long some of the windows — most of which were in the media library and not classrooms — had been broken or why they weren’t repaired until after the complaint came in. All nine windows were boarded up by Jan. 20, and as of Jan. 28, all had been replaced with new, tinted glass, according to Yu.

And what about the district’s failure to turn in assessments that would have entitled it to emergency funding to make the repairs?

According to Yu, as part of the $25 million statewide School Facilities Needs Assessment Grant Program enacted pursuant to the Williams settlement, the State Allocation Board apportioned $335,410 to CUSD to hire a qualified, independent company to conduct a comprehensive facilities needs assessment of the 33 CUSD schools.

The full assessment report was due to the state by Jan. 1, 2006 — more than a year ago.

Yu said Harley, Ellis, Devereaux was originally hired to complete the work.

“CUSD expected the complete needs assessment report to be submitted to the Office of Public School Construction by July 2006,” she continued. “Because the work has yet to be completed and the deadline has still not been met, CUSD has decided to work with another agency-Lundgren Management Corporation.”

The completed needs assessment’s target date is June 30, she said.

Yu added that CUSD is working with two outside vendors to begin initial clean-up activities and routine maintenance work for all assigned schools. Compton High has been assigned as their top priority, and the two firms have already begun work and are scheduled to finish up by Feb. 28.