The excessive heatwave seen this week forced Galesburg School District 205 to release students from Galesburg High School and Churchill Junior High an hour earlier on Wednesday.
Plans have been made to do the same Thursday and Friday.
Temperatures this week are well above normal, reaching into the low 90s midweek.
Churchill has never had air conditioning to help keep temperatures comfortable for students and staff. GHS, however, has been going through a renovation in which air conditioning was to be installed. Unfortunately, those units are not operational yet.
On Monday, the school board learned that the units had to be inspected by the manufacturers before they could be turned on and that wasn’t scheduled until next week.
Lee Marbach with Russell Construction told the board that the construction crews would try and keep the high school cool during the day the best they could.
“There are certain areas that do have cooling. Area J, or the media center, still has cooling and then the hallways all have cooling as part of the units there,” Marbach said. “But the classrooms are pulling off that chiller that has yet to be started up. And, we can’t start it up without the factory technician or we’ll void the warranty.
Marbach added that the manufacturer’s technician would be in school on Monday to make sure everything worked correctly on the new units before they can be run.
“They’re going to check the polarity of the wire when they check the engine, the motor rotation. Shut it off, switch the wires, and then put it back on. Things like that. For the most part, from what I’ve been told, the checklist is just going in order, making sure everything starts up in the right sequence and that we don’t have anything that’s going to damage the equipment on the initial start-up. And that way we’ll have the warranty in place.”
Temperatures next week are expected to be back to normal for the month.
