Not two full weeks into the new school year and we are already having problems. On Monday, August 14th, Sahuaro High School’s staff clocked in and were immediately hit with a wave of heat. Sahuaro’s air conditioning went down over the weekend, and nobody knew about it until a few hours before students arrived. And of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, it just so happened that Brian Gammon, Sahuaro’s custodial engineer who normally arrives around 4 a.m., had taken a personal day.  In response, the school administrators called the district office to look at the AC unit.

Unfortunately, some students and teachers misunderstood the announcement that someone was coming out to look at it and interpreted it as the AC had been fixed when in reality they were still trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Because of this misunderstanding, a lot of students came in on Tuesday expecting to be met with nice cold classrooms, but actually, it was hotter than the day before. And it’s only getting worse.

Some teachers, such as Mr. Bellows, still have zero AC in their rooms more than a week later. When I asked Mr. Bellows about how he was dealing with the sweltering heat in his classes he said, “It’s really affecting my students; they are more focused on surviving the heat, rather than learning.” He also said, “It’s like having no heating in New York winters, you just can’t have that.”

This isn’t just a Sahuaro problem, this is happening at every school in TUSD. It begs the question, what’s more important to the Arizona State Legislature? Should we be repaving perfectly functional parking lots simply for appearances or replacing the 50-year-old AC systems that are barely being held together? Are they prioritizing a new coat of paint to make things LOOK shiny and new or the health and safety of students? The fact that they would consider choosing the latter makes me sick. Get your heads on straight, the future of Arizona could be at risk.