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Thompson superintendent orders early release amid heat; district cites $140 million for full air-conditioning upgrades
Summary
Superintendent Doctor Heller announced the district moved to early release for two days because many school buildings lack air conditioning. He said equipping all schools would cost about $140 million and that districtwide facility needs total about $700 million. Bus staffing and state testing windows limited other options, he said.
Thompson School District R-2J Superintendent Doctor Heller told the school board on Aug. 20 that the district moved to early release for students on Wednesday and Thursday of the week because of extreme heat and inadequate cooling in many buildings.
"Half of our schools have air conditioning while half do not," Doctor Heller said. He estimated it would cost approximately $140,000,000 to equip all district schools with full, adequate air conditioning. He described that figure as one portion of a broader projected need of about $700,000,000 for critical infrastructure and facilities across the district.
Heller said district staff observed classrooms averaging above 86 degrees, with some into the 90s, and that prolonged exposure to such temperatures was affecting learning and could become unsafe in parts of some buildings. The operations team worked nightly to cool buildings, he said, but those efforts were not sufficient during the heat wave.
The superintendent told the board that the district could not selectively keep students in session only at air-conditioned schools because the current bus-transportation staffing and routing do not allow separate early-release schedules for subsets of schools. "That's not an option that we currently have within our staffing of our busing," he said.
Doctor Heller also explained why simply starting the school year after Labor Day was not an immediate solution: Colorado's state testing windows and other nationally scheduled tests such as AP, PSAT and SAT are fixed, and starting after Labor Day would reduce the instructional time students have before those assessments. He said he has contacted the Colorado Department of Education to ask whether a second window for schools that open later might be considered.
Heller said the district will try to give families earlier notice in future situations requiring schedule changes. He also flagged that the district will continue assessing long-term facility investments and start an ADA audit and remediation work to address infrastructure and accessibility gaps.
The board took no formal vote on the early-release decision; the superintendent described it as an administrative action taken by his cabinet earlier in the week.
Clarifying details from the superintendent's remarks
- Estimated cost to fully air-condition all district schools: approximately $140,000,000. - District's broader reported facility need: approximately $700,000,000. - Classroom temperatures observed in affected schools: averaging above 86 degrees, with some rooms reaching the 90s. - Esports-related portion of a separate network bandwidth expenditure: about $22,000 (staff clarification during consent discussion).
