Interesting to note two different former board presidents' view of fiscal philosophy. There is Robert Hartman's views and former president of D41's views.

Since we don't have a total cost of the "summer projects" in District 41 that has air conditioned virtually every space in our schools, we could use D89's number for theoretical purposes. D89 is saying $5 Million to air condition its schools. So, how is is that we have been able to get our schools air conditioned in District 41. I don't remember voting on a building referendum that spelled it out. Could it be that money from our last ed fund ref has allowed the past board and administration to ability to do so? When was the public asked? How was this "philosophy" communicated to the community? When did the board decide not to ask the community? Back when multi-tracking year round school was being discussed, board members went on record saying that this proposal would require voter approval because of the need for air conditioning. The best that can be offered up from our former board president, on whose watch this happened, was that we as an employer owe it to our employees who are in the buildings year-round.

The weekly school paper last week had an article about D41's recent survey. In it board member Vivoda says he would like to get examples of how parents feel that budget information is not being communicated. Unbelievable.

I've not commented on the whole issue surrounding air conditioning in schools...I guess I will now. I've taught many years in rooms without air conditioning. It is completely survivable. Is it fun? No, absolutely not. Is it as conducive to education as an air conditioned room is? No, research supports that. Does that mean the kids (and teachers) are actually harmed by it? Probably not. The buildings where I can see the most benefit are the ones with mulitple levels. As heat rises, the higher floors can become virtually unbearable. By my accounting, Hadley and Ben Franklin are the only schools with true second floors. I can see the desire to put some kind of cooling system in on those levels. I can also understand air conditioning the Libraries (LLC's) and computer labs - it preserves the items housed there which would be expensive to replace. In the end, even without A/C, kids will learn and teachers will teach. I've done it and many teachers will continue to do their job, regardless of the classroom temperature. We always became pretty creative in finding ways to keep the temperature down as much as we could in our rooms...it was like a challenge to see who could keep their room coolest. We teachers are weird like that.

24 years ago I sat in class at West sweating without AC. I actually graduated, went to college and got my degree. Would it have been nice to have air conditioning? Probably, but I didn't really think about it since my house was without it too. In the big picture it doesn't really matter if the schools have it or not. Its only a few days a year they have to put up with such terrible conditions.

The biggest issue for me here is not necessarily one of room temperature, but how we arrived at a point where all of the educational space is indeed air conditioned in D41. There had to be a significant cost involved. And that cost was technically not approved by the community. If the figure is somewhere around $5 Million, then I am wondering where that money came from -- from dollars earmarked for the ed fund?

It reminds me of the saying "It's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission." But it doesn't really fit the district, as they never ask for forgiveness, they just say, "we could have commuicated better."

On that I most certainly concur.