Members of the community brought a potential $20 million project to the District this fall concerning the air quality of five District 95 schools that do not have central air conditioning.

An online petition arose after a hot start to the school year. Andrea Trudeau, a Deerfield District 109 teacher and District 95 parent who has a second and third grader enrolled at Isaac Fox Elementary School, began the petition. Trudeau taught in non-air-conditioned classrooms for 16 years before her district installed central air conditioning.

“It is important for our Board of Education to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) to support students, teachers, and learning in the classroom,” according to Trudeau in the description for the online petition.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the optimal learning condition is at 72 degrees. When school started session this August, temperatures reached 90 degrees, heating up many district classrooms. Aside from unproductive learning climate, excessive heat raises numerous health concerns for both students and employees. Opposition to the petition argues that the number of days during the school year that classrooms reach over the recommended learning temperatures make the potential $20 million an unnecessary investment.

The petition has over 400 online signatures (update as we go), most of which are from concerned parents of district students. Trudeau believes teachers who are employed in the five out of eight un-air conditioned district schools are less likely to sign their names to avoid butting heads with the District’s stance on the project. As of press time, the School Board has yet to discuss the issue but plans to in coming weeks. The teachers may be represented in future Board Meetings by Lake Zurich Education Association President Kathy Perkins.

As of press time, the District 95 Board of Education has not met to discuss the issue. The issue was on the Board meeting agenda last Thursday and the Board is expected to discuss the subject in the near future.

Superintendent Michael Egan released a report estimating the project at $20 million as a follow up from the 2007 estimate from Ruck Pate. Ruck Pate, the construction company from Barrington that was most recently contracted to do the roof renovations at the high school this summer, gave an estimate for central air conditioning for three schools, which was put in the “double digit millions.”

As of press time, there has been no formal estimate for the cost of air conditioning in the five schools. Formal estimates would be known after the district approved the plan and competitive bidding began for the job, which Trudeau believes would drive down the price.

“[The District] could look into their surplus, they could look into Charles Quentin [the elementary school that was closed four years ago] which the District still owns the land for and pays $75,000 every year for. That makes $300,000 they could have made in the past four years if they sold the land,” Trudeau said. “They could also look into grants and community partnerships; there are many approaches we could take and I think we need to work this out so that we can improve the air quality and learning environments in our schools.”

The likelihood of the district draining their surplus to fund the project looks slim due to the Board’s strong focus on driving up the district surplus in the last five years. There are, however, other alternatives that will be looked into such as re-examining the grounds for school to be cancelled due to heat. Districts in the area without air conditioned buildings closed school this fall due to heat, District 95 did not.