Yesterday was the first official school day in Riverside Unified. I checked with my mother in the evening to see how things went. She'd spent hours of unpaid overtime in the weeks prior organizing, cleaning, and decorating her room to make it welcoming for new students.
"No AC," she said. "All day." I doubt her school's situation was unique.
Some rooms had it, some didn't. (Divide and conquer? Gaslighting? "You must have done something to deserve the lack of air"?) No windows in the bunker, of course. Not everyone had fans. Ironically, the district had shelled out big bucks to replace the air conditioning system two years ago. Part of "modernization" grant projects.
This is another vividly depressing example of how individual teacher efforts to make the best of things can be smashed and demoralized.
Anonymous OSHA hotline, anyone?
About Me
- Jo Scott-Coe
- After half a career working as a high school English teacher, essayist Jo Scott-Coe now writes and teaches in voluntary exile from that system, practicing recovery and creative witness. Her writing has appeared in many places, including The Los Angeles Times, Memoir(and), Hotel Amerika, and Fourth Genre. In 2009, her nonfiction received both a Pushcart Special Mention and a Notable Essay listing in Best American Essays. Scott-Coe is currently an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Riverside Community College in Southern California. Her essay collection, Teacher at Point Blank, will be published by Aunt Lute Books in late 2010.
1 comment:
I think it is in the Ed. code somewhere that air-conditioning projects must take at least two years.
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